


Junkyard Gods

by warschach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Genderfluid, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Lance is a god, M/M, Smut, Surfing, everyone's a god except Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 11:14:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9817643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warschach/pseuds/warschach
Summary: What happened to old, forgotten gods?They moved to L.A. apparently“So let me get this straight in my head, which is about to denote cause of you, you’re a god? Like a legitimate god, what you just did was god stuff?”“Technically I can do cooler stuff than that but yea I’m a god and all.” He shrugged, like what can you do about it.“Which god?”“Poseidon.”“Poseidon?”“Yes.”“Poseidon, the water dude with the fork?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> you know the drill i can't keep it short, we all suffer.
> 
> this isn't heavy on the mythology but i do make minor references to the lore.
> 
> any dialogue in italics is Greek.
> 
> Hades is gendered as a woman for most of this fic
> 
> American Gods by Neil Gaiman brought this fic from the graveyard of unfinished projects.
> 
> If there's errors be kind, this is 82 pages and my editing is shit.

 

He lived in the sea—

And don’t start with that little tune from that Disney film, you know the one.

But yea, the sea was his home.

Technically the sea was his domain and all cause he was a god of it, but his palace did reside down in the deep. A real grand thing, towers glimmering with precious gems, coral growing on and around the stone, a shimmery gold when sunlight hammered through the darkness in the deep and found the surface of it. He had the habit of watching his home from a looming cliff, mounted on a water stallion, and observing the pearls, the rubies, the sapphires, all the natural beauty forged from the earth eat sunlight and develop iridescent shades that the ripples of the sea would attempt to carry to the surface.

Sometimes that glitter on the ripples wasn’t purely daylight but his home, illuminating. Gems riding on liquid.

Better than any home from your nine figure A-lister that was for damn sure

But—

 You probably wouldn’t get to see it with the low sea levels, the suffocating pressure that would crush your bones into dust and shove your gut through your mouth, plus most mortals didn’t have a submarine handy to take a stroll down in the deep.

Bummer, really. It was spectacular.

Though even if you did obtain the means to get there, he might not let you in with the whole modernization of mankind. The 21st century, where gods died in obscurity and Justin Bieber was a worldwide sensation.

Not that he was bitter, but mortals kind of forgot about him. Left the god to roam and command the body of salt water. Which fine, he could live—forever— without offerings, visitors, or prayers. Except he wasn’t merely forsaken in the minds of mortals.

Nah, yall had to fucking pour your oil, throw your plastic containers, melt the ice caps, hunt the creatures of his making for silly resources or plain cruelty. And no one came to the god for his mercy, for his forgiveness.

When the tides rose, bellies murky and grey.

No one called him to say, _hey we messed up, sorry._

When the earth splintered and the pavement shattered into fragments, not one soul shouted to him.

He drained the waters.

No mention of his name.

He lifted the sea levels.

Still no name drop.

Yet the defilement continued.

Yea. You people were kind of fucked up.

He got tired. Exhausted. Lonesome.

So he as his brothers and sister did before him, he moved to the States.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Moving required one important detail, a vessel. While he did have a form, it wouldn’t exactly fit walking in the streets. Plus with the lack of followers and offerings and his regardless use of natural disasters, his energy was depleted so he couldn’t really summon a form.

So he had to wait for a perfect vessel.

This was the really nitty, gritty part of the process so eyes on him, children. Getting a vessel was a lot like finding the right dress, and not one from your local Target. No, this dress must be _tailored_ to your dimensions. Down to the slope of your ankle to your foot. To the beauty mark dotted on the tailbone and the left inner foreman. To the dark lashes. The swell of your cupid bow. Exact, exact. The slight miscalculation and the body either rejected you or decayed from the inside out.

Few mortals were built to host a god, lets put it at that and be done with it.

Also, the vessel had to be uh, vacant.

If you wanted to be a dick or have your host become derange, then you could take one with a soul attached. The risk ran pretty high on that set of circumstances. Most mortals scarcely managed themselves to begin in, and you wanted to toss in a second one with a centuries worth of experiences and knowledge and powers no man should ever touch.

Lots of those cases went two routes, the host went nutty and got locked in a psych ward and the god remained trapped until the host passed or transferred consciousness into a vegetated state. Or the host and the god melded, like glass to a raging furnace and become a single being. Which, surprised, turned out mental and had a handy bag full of tricks to lay waste to mankind and then some.

The rule of thumb to follow was heavenly powers handled poorly in the care of mortals.

So never ever, no matter how desperate you were for one, take a vessel with a attached soul.

Bad news.

Awful, awful news actually cause all the others gods would band together and play clean up on the blunder and the gods rarely did that. You know, _work_. As a team and not try to fuck up the other’s shit. Granted most of that unsavory rivalry shit happened way, way back in the early days and a lot of them did some growing up from then to now but still.

If Hades, Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon came to your door, you were in a new level of fucked.

Happened to Hermes, poor bastard.

And Demeter.

He stepped in on both occasions.

Now you knew how not to acquire a host.

Let get started on how you did.

First, find your perfect match. You did, great.

Next step, arrange for events or patiently wait out the host. So they had to die basically or be dead long enough for the soul to depart.

Then you entered the vessel.

But hold on, hot shot, did you really want this vessel cause once you were in, you were _in_. The only exit out the vessel was a flight to the Underworld and while in the vessel, you got all the perks.

You wanted to indulge your gluttony. Well go ahead, dine. Food didn’t transfer tasteless and dull as it did when you were a god.

Watch your calorie intake, though. Remember you’re in a mortal body and the love handles got root.

Wanted to fuck everything on two legs with a wet hole. Then you’re in luck, my friend, cause half of the population was down for that party. Women, men, barely legal, so damn fine they should be outlawed, their skin screamed sex, tingled desire. The world was your oyster.

But—and mind this— don’t get too wild. STDs were a bitch.

Nice perks, right?

Like, where can I sign up, huh?

Hold on, pal; did you forget?

Mortals could do and experience all these neat sensations but you’re overlooking one of the most defining one—

Pain.

So to eject out of an unwanted vessel, you had to experience that same pain. The same trough from living to dead just as they did.

Be wise with your vessel.

Great thing for him, he had a man who complied his desires of a vessel and did the leg work for him.

Hades, or as her vessel went by Pidge and before he proceeded, it had to be mention that Hades. Mr. Lord of the Dead took permanent residence in a body of a five footer woman with hair the color of red clay left to dry in the sun, round eyes, petite body, and pitched voice.

Hades…whose placed was decked out in the darkest of shadows, temple crafted from black steel and skulls, the water uncross-able unless you were dead, immortal, or Charon.

Sorry, he was adjusting to the name and the body.

Don’t mind him.

Anyway—

She pulled off from the pier, where daily beach bums and tourists loitered on the boardwalk, still eating their junk food and yelling to each other over the rides and the businesses, and met the shoreline.

She ducked under the deck, pillars growing straight from the sea and the shadows darkening as night fell, and sat on the wet sand.

The noise above dwindled. Families scurrying to their resorts. Natives making the commute back home, another summer day wasted on the sweet nectar of life.

Pidge unslung her backpack and stared at the tranquil waves as a group of young suffers walked with their surfboard under their armpits. Bodies bronze and sculpted by the surf. Their chatter was swept up by the wind.

When they left, she glared at the slow bobbing water. “I can’t believe you made me meet you here. You seriously can’t make a form?”

Poseidon said, voice a tremor over the sea. The ripples turned active and alive with his presence. “ _Sorry I’m looking for my brother. Badass. Lord of the Underworld. Have you seen him, little girl?_ ”

Pidge’s eyes lit up, the warm ambers ebbing to a brilliant yellow he had only seen in the city of the dead, “Okay, smartass. How are you exactly going to find a vessel on your own?”

A small wave rose and rushed Pidge.

She fell back, laughing. “That’s what I thought. Besides, I like this vessel and I wanted to be a woman. So what?”

“ _Wouldn’t your wife think it’s weird_?”

Seagulls waddled from their seats in the sky and ate up scraps on the beach. A squawked cut the soft movement of the water when two battled for a hotdog bun.

“Yea, we’re kinda on the off side of our relationship. Persephone’s with her mother now.” She rolled her eyes.

He was intimately familiar with the routine. They had a lover’s quarrel, one side would end the relationship and go to extreme lengths to manipulate the other to admit they were in the wrong and reconcile. Reason he knew was cause he uh, assisted Hades.

Listen, they’re brothers. He had a duty to help and a duty to knock some sense into his siblings when they became total numbskulls.

If you did the math, that rounded off to fifty percent of the time.

What, no family was perfect.

“Her vessel died a while ago and she decided to go home. I’m assuming it’s to make me crawl back and beg her to return.”

The wind whistled, the sound delicate as shells brushed dull from coarse sand, “ _And are you?_ ”

Hades combed back the tendrils of her hair after the wind loosened out a few strands from her ponytail. “What, no. She said Nicholson was a better Joker. She has to take that back before I dare welcome her.”

“ _Wait, what_?”

“Nevermind. It’s—“ Pidge fixed her tail. “I’ll show you once you get your vessel and everything. You’re going to really like these films mortals make, they’re amazing. And there are so many! Like there are movies but you have TV shows and some of them go on for several seasons and you wouldn’t think you could give a shit about some mortal and her love affair with a well-established doctor but you do.”

A silence floated across the baby swells. “ _Like seasons, seasons? Spring, fall—“_

Pidge cut the air, “No, no. I’m getting sidetracked. I’m going to show you everything, don’t worry. It’s boring as hell with just Zeus and Athena. Dionysus is here.”

Water slapped the shoreline, excited. “ _Dionysus is here and you didn’t tell me? Hades, what the fuck.”_

“Well Dionysus showed up a month ago. You were over at the Atlantic Ocean, remember?”

Foam slithered back into the bed of blue. “ _Oh. Yea. I was doing…stuff.”_

“You were all moody, you mean.”

“ _Shut up._ ”

Pidge smiled and though the vessel shared no resemblance to his brother, the smile crossed over the same. Still wide and cocky. “Anyway, your vessel’s soul departed a while ago. So he’s up and ready for you.”

“ _Does he fit my uh, requirements?”_

Pidge groaned. “Out of all the gods, you had the dumbest requests. Really.”

_“I’m very picky about my vessel. Don’t judge.”_

“Look, he’s not exactly as you described but he is a perfect fit. It will take time for another to come so either it’s him or you’re on the waitlist. And there is a list of gods. I put you at the top, since we’re fam and all.”

“ _Alright. I’ll go see him_ ,” Poseidon relented.

“Good. It’ll be nice to have one sibling who isn’t a drag.” Pidge grabbed her backpack and set it between her legs, unzipping it. “Don’t get mad.” She looked at the ocean and pulled out a empty plastic bottle.

Waves swelled, annoyed. “ _Are you kidding me? You’re putting me in that.”_

“I don’t have anything else and you can’t take a form. This is the least suspicious thing we can use.”

_“Gods, fine. Put me in the fucking bottle. I can’t believe this—“_

Pidge scooped up water to the top and capped it. “Quit bitching. It’s a short trip.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Travel via plastic bottle didn’t provide the smoothest of commutes but Pidge got them to the hospital in one piece. Though his head was spinning from all the sloshing around in the bottle.

Pidge walked through the hospital’s door, waving at a nurse in the front.

He whispered when they passed the front desk, “ _Mind carrying the bottle like your god damn brother’s in it?”_

“I’m sorry but I had to run to catch that bus.”

Another staff in scrubs wandered down the corridors, devotedly reading a clipboard.

He waited until their footstep receded, “ _I think you’re full of shit.”_

“It’s really hard to take your seriously right now. With the whole water bottle situation.”

_“Piss off_.”

“Or I could drink you.”

“ _Don’t you dare_.”

Pidge smirked, reducing her pace to uncap the bottle.

His own perspective changed, one second having cheap title run below him to his brother’s, uh sister, face.

“ _I swear to the Gods if you fucking—“_ Pidge slowed her pace and tipped the bottle back, slowly. “ _Hey, hey! Stop. Don’t drink me.”_

She recapped it, staring through the plastic at miniature sized sea god Poseidon swirling tiny water tornadoes. Not impressive in an eight ounce but in a huge body of sea water, it was a different tune.

She laughed softly, “This is so much fun. You sure you don’t want to stay in this bottle instead?”

“ _And you wonder why we put you to rule the Underworld.”_ Poseidon bit back.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Pidge set the lights in the room and engaged the lock on the door. “Alright. We’re here.”

She tossed her bag on a unused visitor’s chair and brought a steel tray near the bed so Poseidon could look over the vessel.

She moved the tray over the vessel’s torso.

Poseidon checked out the merchandise.

Pidge pulled out the guy’s medical information, flipping through the paperwork. “Guy’s name is Lance McClain. Arrived about four months ago after a bad fall off a cliff. Think he hit the water wrong. Got knocked up real bad and thought it was smart to take a nap right after. Landlord noticed he wasn’t making much noise so he went in and found him. He hasn’t woken up since.”

“ _When did the soul leave?_ ”

“A few weeks ago. Don’t worry, he ain’t coming back for the body.”

“ _Funny_.”

Pidge licked her lips,” Well I thought so. Um let’s see…he’s twenty-two. Had an active life. He tested negative on the tests so he’s a clean slate for you. Doesn’t have any family in the State and we all know you’re not much of an actor.”

_“I think the first thing I’m going to do once I get my vessel is punch you.”_

Hades chuckled and put away the clipboard, coming up behind Poseidon. “Alright. I gave you the run down, what do we say Water Boy?”

Now that he had all the information, he _really_ looked. Really considered the package cause no buyer worth their salt started on the gear unless the seller assured its authenticity. In this case, you wanted a clean and healthy body to get set up in.

Hospitals offered little when it came to poetic lighting and an air of magic to a situation. Hard to with fluorescent lights buzzing like busy bees and the monitors beeping away , each hoot of it a measure of a soulless’ vessel heart. A car on the lot with no current driver. The tubes pouring out the vessel’s mouth like snakes was mildly unsettling, not as bad as Medusa’s mug if you wanted to talk about snakes but whatever.

Minus the buzzing, the beeping, the tubes of medical snakes— the guy was damn gorgeous for a mortal.

I mean gods were at a whole another level of beauty and grace. Their unadulterated forms would blind you and turn you mad, hence them all changing shapes and colors like chameleons.

But for his first starter vessel, it was a mighty good find.

10 out 10.

 A mortal the goddess of love might court for an extended period of time and Aphrodite courted strictly the exquisite humanity had to offer. Currently that was a certain celebrity A-lister, starring in every latest film.

He didn’t like to drop names but…nah, he shouldn’t. You kids could guess though, gods liked their little games

Face something Narcissus might envy.

 A chiseled jawline found off the backs off bumpy mountainsides. Tall and neatly muscled from what he could tell, probably from all that cliff climbing the guy did previously and quiet often enough for the definition to take and hold. An easy five-seven by the look of it granted being strapped into a medical gown and itchy blankets shrunk any illusion of height and mass.

Skin like a sweet honey when you had it captured in a jar and slanted for the light, that whole glow you got. Yea that was the vessel’s skin. Hair unruly and thick, color close to milk chocolate.

The paperwork said he had a set of baby blues, he would have to confirm later about that cause the vessel was out of state and empty bodies didn’t blink or talk.

“ _Not bad,”_ he said, humming with approval.

Hades scoffed, “I literally got you the hottest vegetable in LA. The only way I could get you better is you clip the strings off some celebrity or model.”

“ _Yes but is he packing the heat_?”

“I hate you,” Pidge rolled back the tray and pulled down the sheets. She grabbed the hem of the medical gown and lifted.

He strained to see. “ _I can’t get a good look back here.”_

“I would send you to the Underworld if it was still running. Come here.” She brought him over. “There. Got a look now?”

“ _Oh man, you hit the jackpot.”_

She complained. “You’re gross.”

“ _I’m smart.”_

“Debatable. So yea or no?”

“ _That’s a fuck yea, brother.”_

“Good, I don’t want to tell you how many dicks I had to sort through to find this guy.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

Merging the essence of a god to a body of a mortal was a lot like opening any random door down an endless corridor and taking a blind step through it and where you should find some solid footing, you got a drop into. An infinite one with no grapple to suspend the fall.

He felt like he was falling for eons.

Traveling between the planes of his mind to the one of Lance’s.

His memories of Greece. Mount Olympus, where he and his family gathered when the situation suited them or when one wasn’t in a spat with the other, the holy temple perched high and regal on the peak of the mountain as the clouds surrounded the white stone. The blue crystal of his ocean from the pearly peak as the sun rushed over the ripples, the boats sailing on it after they sent their prayers for a safe passage to him, the flap of the sails in the wind, the sailors running from starboard to port on their sea captain’s command.

They looked so fragile and helpless from the mountain like ants.

Power swelled finely in his belly at the sight, at the concrete thought, at the undeniable fact that— yes they were mere ants when it came to gods.

His memories of—

 The towns and  their capitals of Athens, Alexandria, Troy advanced next. The timeless architecture of the era, white marble being molded and toyed like wet clay.

He remembered—

The countless wars waged between one king to the next for land, glory, women, hatred.

 The wars between himself and other gods, the wreckage he would leave— broken ships splintered down to needle thin blades of wood, the floating bodies of sailors on the sea’s surface, their gold, gems, and precious treasure drifted down to the deep depths of his home. How easily he could flood their cities and homes, fill their tiny streets with the snap of his fingers. The creatures he could conjure with a single thought. Sea horses, Squids, Sharks larger than any modern home in these metal cities. The fear mortals felt. The awe. The love. Their obedience.

Water, people thought so little of it.

But water, in massive force, could destroy like no other. Could bring a suffering like no other.

You wouldn’t burn.

You’d drown.

Your cities buried in the sea.

Your carefully constructed buildings became a surface for coral and vines to grow around, for the live of the sea to bend to its will.

Your homes submerged under the moving surface of clear, glossy blue waters.

Then with the nature and behavior like a stormy wave, Lance’s memories poured in like fragments from a wreckage, the leftovers that his soul couldn’t take with him into the next chapter of his life.

The rural streets of Mexico with his single floored home that housed brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles. The roads that gave away to brown dirt and mossy grass. The uproot of his life from a seven year old boy in the poor districts of Mexico to the glittery, vibrant streets of LA. The struggle of learning to be an American when all you knew was Mexico, a little brown boy with Spanish words on his tongue while the native talked in English. Fights from within himself to any fucker that looked at him wrong like he didn’t earn his right here, like Lance wasn’t clean enough to be in the States.

And finally, Lance’s love for the ocean. An yearning that resonated in his bones.

He saw Lance sitting on black rocks with the ocean breaking against the cliffside. He saw Lance in nothing but swim shorts and a longboard as he raced to the shoreline in the morning dawn.

Saw Lance mount the board when a wave crested under it and took off, riding water. His body refracted back on the reflective wall of liquid. His fingers brushed it, hissing through.  Lance felt like a god then.

Funny, he was a god now.

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

It took him a week to adjust to his new body, he grew comfortable with the name, the face. They were his now.

Lance was Poseidon.

Poseidon was Lance.

He was an immortal god but his body, sadly, had an expiration date on it.

He was stunning. Beautiful. Masculine.

His voice thickened with a Spanish accent when he yelled or spoke rapidly; and when he concentrated on the memory he could speak it too. Hits of the soul lingered and his fluent comprehension of it was one of them.  His mother tongue sounded lovely with this voice like a hundred matches scraped across flint and catching fire in a single stroke. Though he reserved speaking in Greek unless he was with family or he felt like boasting in front bodacious bodies on the beach.

 Mortals ran differently than gods.

There was plenty he could no longer do.

In his heavenly form, he did severe damage. Bones snapped like twigs with a flick of his forefinger. Rocks, stones, cars were his dumbbells. When he fucked it really was a marathon cause he could get it up and fucking keep it going climax after climax. Though rumor had it mortals got the most out of sex, what felt good to a god was mindblowing to a mortal.

In his mortal body, everything went on mute. Against immortal being he wouldn’t stand a change, to other mortals the odds favored him. It was similar to stuffing a shotgun shell into the clip of a standard handgun. The housing lacked a thick steel beams and brick walls but the furnishing was lucrative.

He could run for miles without breaking a sweat. Never had to pause for a breather.

He could lift heavy for his size. Nothing to write home about but men gaped at him in the gym as he bunched four hundred for several reps. The women noticed, impressed and aroused. Some men did too though they were less obvious about it and hit him up in the showers when the space grew thin with bodies.

He passed on it, not a god who thrived on his conquests. Plus people loved to obsess and admire what they couldn’t have and that was recently turned god, Lance.

Gods loved nothing more than blind followers.

One thing he did very well was surf.

Easy when one, you’re a god and two, the body was designed for that purpose.

Clouds migrated over the sun, painting the sand white, tanning the girls who laid prone on their towels to the men slapping a volleyball up and over the net. The ocean’s melody drowned out every other sound.

Lance eyed the swells, reading the waves, until the right one showed up.

He paddled out and mounted it, gliding flawlessly up it, and rode the peak with his knees bents. His arms hung to his sides, their help unneeded unless he lost his equilibrium, as he shredded water.

The wave began to buckle and curl in on itself. He cut the borad down, sitting the spiral, and raced it before it could close its watery jaws on him.

Lance made it out in time, the tide collapsing and spraying the air.

The young girls in itty bikinis clapped for him, trying hard to smile pretty and innocently from the shore. A few other surfers pointed to him and chatted amongst each other, possibly questioning who the fuck he was and how he did _move_ like some kind of god on the surf.

He flipped on to his back and shut his eyes to the sun.

Ripples bobbed him in either direction. One foot dangled in the water and he felt the sea massaged at the gritty callouses on his heel. He had both arms tossed over his face.

He heard the parting of the ocean, the sound of someone paddling through the resistance as though she was trying to actively keep everyone away from the god as he sun bathed.

“Isn’t that cheating if you’re a god?”

Lance blinked, the sudden brightness busting sun spots in his vision.

He sat up, confused.

The guy on the surf board waved. He was burly, copper-skinned, and had soulful eyes.

“Long time, Poseidon,” he said.

It clicked then, the warm spirt, the ease and harmony that settled in his joints at the man’s appearance.

Lance smiled, “Dionysus.”

Dionysus pointed a forefinger to his furred chest, “Hunk.”

“Lance,” Poseidon said.

“Can I say you’re a fucking nerd for surfing? “

Lance brushed the flat of his palm on the water, spoke low and quick in Greek, and laughed when a wave roared up swiftly and knocked Hunk off his board.

Hunk surfaced and coughed, swimming to his board. “I forgot you could do that.”

“Yea or else you’d have waited until we left the ocean.”

Hunk climbed up, droplets of wet clung to his lashes. “If I know you, you would just find a cup of water and use that on me.”

“Well,” Lance hummed.

“Don’t deny it.”

He laughed, “Maybe. Anyway let me make you a drink. My house isn’t too far.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Hunk and Lance caught one wave before packing up and walked on foot to Lance’s home, which was a short brisk from the beach and wedged between a row of homes. The plaster was a creamy ivory that devoured light and beamed it back twice as hard, in the darkest of nights it radiated bright. It had two floors to it, a small roof with skylight, a tiny alleyway and cobblestone pathway, and a terrace that overlooked the palm trees and the shore. The front of the place had floor to ceiling windows that opened up the space.

He ditched the swim gear and slipped on cargo shorts and a tank top and set his and Hunk’s board in the back.

Lance made them two scotches on the rocks and walked to the terrace, giving Hunk his glass as he lounged comfortably on a cushioned wicker chair.

Lance dropped into the one angled slightly to Hunk’s and sunk into the cushions.

For the first few minutes they people watched, pointing out some of the ridiculous outfits people wore to the men cranked out on steroids that their veins pulsed, to the under age and under dressed girls who traveled in packs of three to four all high off their alluring youth and the guys that would never meet their standards.

The noon colors filled the sky as the sun fractioned down to half a coin over the horizon. Already the city’s light started to glow.

Hunk rested his glass on the arm rest, fingers loose at the base. “You asshole. You’re here for what, about a month and you bought this nice joint? I had to crash with Athena until I worked up the crash for a one bedroom apartment. And I’m had to take a loan out to buy the lease for the club.”

Lance sloshed the scotch in the cup; the amber glinted when he angled it in front of the light. “Wait, you actually got a job?”

“Of course I got a job…” Hunk started, voice dimming in volume as his mind worked out the implication of that statement.

His spine pulled straight as he turned over and stared intensely into Lance’s eyes. “No. No way, you aren’t even working right now.”

“No? I pawned some of the gold.”

“Gold?!”

“From the ships at the bottom of the sea, why are you confused?” He explained factually.

The god deflated and slouched back into the chair. “I hate you so much.”

Lance brought the glass to his mouth, the rim wet with saliva. “No you don’t. You’re just mad you didn’t think of it.”

“I don’t have dominion of the sea and like I would know where to look without your help,” he grumbled, then tipped back a swig.

“Alright, you got me there,” he admitted and finished his fill too. He shook the glass, the rocks clanking against it. “Want another?”

“Yes, Mr. Millionaire.”

He rolled on to his feet, collecting their glasses, and opened the slider. “Unofficially I have more money than Bill Gates last I check.”

“Make that scotch a double and easy on the rocks.” Dionysus instructed.

Lance leaned on the door, rubbing the flat of his foot against his calf, “Is it too soon to mention that I’m looking at Lambos right now?”

“I dunno, do wanna leave your vessel right now?”

“No.”

“Then make that scotch, Richer-Than-Bill-Gates.”

“Sorry. I meant a Bentley.”

Dionysus sat up.

Poseidon backed off the terrace, “I’m kidding. You haven’t change.”

“Neither have you.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

It was a Saturday and locals filled the beach, which made sense Saturday was a national lazy day and not a single cloud obscured the sun. He couldn’t move an inch in either direction without bumping friendly into some kid, or a weed reeked beach bum, or an oiled dame.

Forecast promised a gloomy sky and rainfall. He would personally like to strangle the new reporter who misled him. Cause now he couldn’t surf titan waves that storms brought with them or relax the short mile away on the sand. Not with Timmy and Jimmy screaming when their sand castle collapsed under its unstable foundation. Or the guys hitting up every girl into an itty two piece with the opening line, _hey beautiful you got a man_.

A volley ball punted the side of his face and he tumbled over with the force, cheek hitting sand. The idle waters, abruptly as if by some cosmic force, chopped violently on the coastline and swept up unsuspecting people too caught up in conversation to spot the incoming whitecaps.

He groaned, working his jaw.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” a woman kneeled in the sand, the ball propped in her lap. “That was my fault. I hit the ball too hard.”

His eyes narrowed with the feeling of pain. “It’s fine. Fuck.” Lance rubbed, the sting not rushing to leave anytime soon. “You got a lot of power there, girl.”

“I’m a goddess so yea I have plenty power.”

Lance hesitated. Light glared into his eyes.

The woman, one hell of a woman he might add, pouted with her chin popped on her fist. “Seriously? You can’t tell.”

“Uh…” He checked out the beauty with the packing punch of a military jet fighter.

Expressive honey eyes. Eyebrows trimmed and artfully lined. A petite nose. Pouty lips to die for. Rich brown skin that men and women all over LA strived for but failed to achieve. Hair thick and wild. And a model body that screamed naughty red numbers and form fitting mermaid gowns, though you wouldn’t be able squeeze this woman into any sizes below four which wasn’t bad in the least.

It made sense to draw a blank with such a stunning dame, especially one who knew her worth and worked it tastefully into high waist denim shorts and a white mesh top over a black bra.

“Mr. Sea God too cool to remember a certain huntress?” She hinted, bobbing her head. “Come on, if you can’t take that hint I might have to hurt you for real.”

Oh course, that spunk. That tomboy flare. One of the few goddesses that could play with the big boys and put them on their asses.

“Artemis.”

She beamed, smile made for the camera. “Bingo but it’s Shay for now. I’m going to assume you’re so old that your memory is slipping.”

“No one told me you came to the States.”

“Actually I haven’t been in the States for long,” Artemis tapped her clean nails on the ball, palmed it in one hand, and tossed it upwards. It took a minute for the ball to come back down but when it did, she didn’t have to look up to catch it. “I was in India. I got a contract with a modeling agency so they relocated me to L.A.”

“Goddess of the hunt, a model.”

She shot the ball for his face.

It slapped hard into his hand. Much kinder, he tossed it over underhanded.

“What, I got sick of hearing how stunning Aphrodite is. It’s my turn to be the pretty one.”

“Oh boy.  I’m not touching that,” he commented when she passed the ball again.

“Wuss.”

“Nope.” Lance shook his head, punting the ball with the flat of his fist. “Not saying a word. I know very well how you girls are.”

“Like you and Zeus don’t compete.”

“Everyone in our whole family competes. That’s what happens when you room all the gods in one place. Living at Olympus for a century was a bad call, it gave me such an inferiority complex.”

“Shut up. You fucking command the damn sea. If you’re low on the list of gods then I hate to see where I rank.”

“Probably with all the pretty gods.”

“Good boy.” Over the hundreds of voices and the crying seagulls, a group of attractive girls called Shay’s name. The goddess looked at the girls waiting by the net. “Shit, I promised the girls they would get me all day but I’ll see you at the party right?”

“What party?” He watched her brushed sand off her shorts.

“You’re welcome home party…” She silenced herself at Lance’s dull stare. “Fuck, was that a surprise? Please don’t tell Hades I ruin it.”

“I’m getting a party?” He repeated like a broken clock.

Shay winced, “You didn’t hear it from me.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Hades visited, in tow was a talkative French Bulldog named Cerberus…

You can laugh, he sure did.

 Despite the negative rep, Hades was not by any means that awful of an god and out of all of them, she enjoyed hanging out with the other gods. Charon could tax him for the number of times the boatman sailed him over the river of Styx but you didn’t tax gods. Mortals. Demi-gods, other immortals, yeah. Gods got a service discount at the Underworld.

Lance locked up the place and pocketed his keys. “So I heard you’re setting up a party for me.”

Pidge grumbled, head tipped back. Her sunglasses sloped back down her nose with it. “Who snitched? Artemis, right? Fucking Artemis, I made her swear by the gods to keep her mouth shut.”

“I don’t think you can swear to yourself,” he said, trading plastic doggie bags for the leash.

They started away from the bustle and fit bodies on the beach and went in search for food.

“Fine, to god. Either way I want you to come. Everyone wants to see you honestly. It’s been too long since all of us hanged out when we weren’t at war with the Titans or some demigod.”

“I’ll go but if Athena starts that shit with the olive tree then I’m out.”

“Let’s recap, last time you were the one to bring it up and you guys had a show of strength contest. Remember you lifted that huge boulder and destroy that statue and then you ran into the ocean for weeks?”

Cerberus sniffed out a shady tree and put his nose to the earth, scenting for other dogs.

Lance stopped and let Cerberus do his little dog thing and check out the interesting aromas.

“That statue was shit. He literally made _David_ right after.”

“Yes because you destroyed the original one.”

“I still think _David_ was much better.”

Pidge ignored him, going on a rant with a miserable voice in the attempt to shame him for his previous misdeeds. “It could have gone into a museum. Probably would have revolutionize art but you fucked it up.”

 A scowl formed on his face as he stared at her from the corner of his vision. “Is this your way of telling me not to compete with her? I said I won’t.”

Cerberus found the perfect spot and  lifted his leg.

“Okay, good. We can’t do shit like that anymore. People have cameras and the internet.”

“Alright, alright. If she doesn’t start—“

“Gods.”

“What, what?” He barked. “I won’t start if she doesn’t.”

“You two are worse than me and Zeus.”

“Oh, really? Should I bring up—”

Pidge poked his chest. “Watch it, Aquaman.”

“Who?” Lance asked before Cerberus spotted a large dog a few spaces ahead of them and charged, putting his nose to the air and puffing out his chest.

He stumbled at first then commanded Cerberus to heel.

“Wow, seriously. How about you stop surfing and chasing dick and pick up a comic? You live in the 21st century and you don’t know the least popular DC superhero.”

“You gave me a long list of movies, games, and books to work through. It will take me a century to get it done.”

“Not my problem. You’re a god. Figure it out.”

“Yes I forgot alongside my ability to command the sea, staying current with pop culture was at the top.”

 “Even Zeus knows.”

He jerked his head sharply at that and whispered. “Liar.”

“Honest, I swear it on our mother.”

 “I’ll Google it. Happy?”

“Profoundly. Also Mr. Money-Bags buy the alcohol too? Here a list. Another thing, you’ll want to get some sort of job, the government here tends to be prickly with it comes to money. They might think you’re a drug lord. Though it would be funny if you got thrown in prison for tax evasion, a god in prison.”

“Hades, I understand you’re what mortal calls— a hater. You hate so vigorously because you don’t have what I do.”

Mute fury scrunched her lips. “Did you just call me a hater?”

“Yes, Hades. God of the Underworld. Hater of L.A, ” he hopped on an elevated curb, grinning down at Pidge with the added height.

She said from below where the other mini people of her kind dwelled. “Not all of us have a graveyard of ships with mountains of gold sitting in our front lawn.”

“I’m sorry I’m blessed.”

“Oh shut up. Bless my ass.”

“So cause I’m blessed I have to pay for everything?”

“No. You’re paying for everything because you have the money.”

“It’s not my party if I’m buying the drinks.”

“It is when I tell Hunk that I paid for it.”

“You’re a bastard.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

He tried for jobs, ones with something to do with water but the beach distracted him and the swimming pools were sickly with chemicals, plus three kids peed in the pool. Another called him a loser and said he can run all he wants. Such a shame that kid didn’t see the puddle of water in his path.

Lance went for one with as little to do with anything aquatic.

He found an old bookstore with an attached café, none of the corporate coffeehouses, and he stacked shelves with used books donated from customers and the latest releases. The place had the ambience of the old library of Alexandria where the books were brown and distinctively aged, each the spine on the old books creaked when you lifted the cover, the paper whispered and the footfalls were hushed– a home of knowledge.

Or in this case, it was home to thirty-seven copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.

There, hopefully that appeased the IRS gods or whatever.

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance was on his way home when he took a detour on the sand. It was midafternoon by then with the sun scraping the horizon and the sea looked like it was finger painted in shimmers of champagne and smudges of blue. Stragglers wandered on the shore, the bigger crowd gone for the night.

A group of partyers made a lot of noise, tripping over their feet and hands full of opened bottles. The girls giggled and walked barefooted, their heels dangled from their fingertips.  One guy downed his bottle to the last drop, belched and aimed it for the trash crash and missed. They all laughed at him. His friend did the same, wanting to outdo him, and failed too.

The girls doubled over and laughed into their hands.

The guy shrugged, acting as though he couldn’t give a shit, and pocketed a pack of cigs. He hit the bottom of the pack with his palm and pulled a cig out using only his mouth and lit it with an obnoxious Zippo lighter with a sexy dame on it.

Lance was stalking over before he realized it.

It was one thing to disrespect the earth but to do it in front of him, near the sea where the bottle could easily roll and harm the aquatic swells.

Someone else beat him to the punch cause one second, the Jackass of the Hills were cut short by a guy in a retro Ford tank top and low riding swim trunks with Florida palm trees.

As he drew near, Lance saw the guy had a clean undercut with the top overgrown, dark sapphires eyes that screamed _attitude_ , and mean, _mean_ arms.

The main dude laughed at whatever Attitude had to say personally.

“Pick up your shit, asshole,” Attitude snarled. Mean energy fisted in his hands.

Main dude and dude number two traded looks and snorted. “You fuckin’ serious, man? You da police?”

Dude number two snickered. “Nah, he’s Captain Planet.”

“Look you can’t drink or smoke here. Maybe you do that shit at your shitty beach but we keep it earth clean here.”

He blew smoke out his nostrils and angled his jaw so Attitude was consciously aware that he outmatched him height wise. “Dude go get fucked. Fucking hipsters with their earth friendly bullshit.” He jerked his head and started to walk away.

Attitude developed _real_ attitude and shoved main dude back, who fell, too drunk and dumb to brace himself. The amber glowing cig plummeted tip first and extinguished with a hiss and a dainty wisp of smoke.

“What the hell, dude!” One of the girls checked on main dude.

He brushed her off, got up, and threw a fist for Attitude’s face and landed it neatly across his mouth.

Attitude landed hard on the sand, stunned by the pain.

Main dude reared his fist back which made it easy for Lance to grab it. Tension tugged but made no further movement.

The guy snapped his head back, eyes sluggishly coated in drunken anger.

He pulled on his arm and went nowhere.

Lance looked so bored with the fight he was putting but let him get it out of his systems. Mortals tended to fight tooth and nail.

“The fuck man. Let go.” He growled.

His friends watched on, shocked and unsure if they should step in once they realized Lance’s strength was not a thing to trifle with.

The guy on the sand stared, blood trickling out of the gash on his lips. Crimson drizzled over the soft swell and started a path on the dip of his chin.

An unkind thing sizzled and scorched his body.

Stupid violence, fucking so stupid.

A thunderous noise bellowed a few feet away from the sea, white foam hammered the damp sand then retreated.

The god yanked on the wrist and brought the drunk staggering face to face, hard liquor blasted over his face.

“I will.” He spoke, voice textured thickly with Greek and Spanish. Godly. “When I do, you will clean after yourself. Then you and your friends will smoke elsewhere. And you will give this man an apology. Heartfelt, please.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He sighed, “You’re drunk and making a scene. I will repeat myself, clean, apologies and leave.”

Lance applied pressure, gentle. Anything greater than it could fracture the tiny bones in the man’s wrist.

The man gasped, the coloring from intoxication paling under the pain. “Fuck. Get the fuck off me.”

“Anthony,” one of the girls in the group stepped forward. “Get your head out of your ass. It’s time to go home. I’m sorry, he’s a really stupid drunk.”

The god uncurled his fingers and Anthony buckled, hissing as he cradled his wrist.

“Stephanie,” Anthony argued.

Stephanie hefted him to his feet. “Shut up. Guys pick up the trash.”

Their friend perked into action and grabbed the empty bottles strewn on the ground.

Anthony seemed to be drifting already into sleep.

Stephanie scowled at him, “Sorry, really. If you didn’t call the cops on us that would be—.”

Attitude picked himself up. Sand powdered the flat side of his palms, little gold flecks against the white of it.

 “It’s fine.”

“You’re bleeding. We can, I don’t know, help with that if you want. Not that you would want to be around this guy any longer than you need to be.”

Lance piped up, “I got it.”

Attitude’s eye wandered over to Lance, debating the suggestion before he shrugged.  “Yea. He’s got it, apparently.”  He wiped his hands clean.

Stephanie offered her apologies once more, then left with her group once they gathered their trash. A whisper passed between them as they dared a look back at Lance.

“Uh, thanks for stepping in.”

“Actually I was about to tell them something before you did. It’s good to see not everyone is an asshole and gives a shit about this place.”

“I doubt that guy comes here often. Lots of people here don’t do shit like that. It’s a nice place.”

“It is. Let me help you with that.” Lance pressed a forefinger to his lip in demonstration.

“Nah. It’s not that bad. I can fix it at home.”

Yea but the grimace twisting pain on his features whenever he talked and the blood on his shirt argued otherwise.

The guy thumbed it to test out the severity and soldiered through the pain at the touch.

Not that bad, my ass. Though the stubbornness to refuse aid was admirable, a reminder to the men of the ages who ate the sword to the hilt and carried on to the next one. Countless men perished like that, others became legends but this was a time so far from that.

“Actually it’s kinda nasty looking. My place is literally a few blocks away.”

A healthy suspicion narrowed the guy’s eyes. “Is this you taking guys to your home so you can murder them?”

Lance flopped his arms out and groaned theatrically. “Shit, well I’m not gonna do it now since you spoiled it.”

“Alright so you’re not a murder.” He grinned until he remembered that awful gash and minded his mouth.

“Not tonight,” he laughed, putting his hands in his pocket. The power of his godly might receded from the bones. “It’s a cheat day for me.”

He gestured, voice kind of coarse like jagged rocks put on a spin cycle. “Lead the way then…uh, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lance,” he offered as he walked backwards.

L.A sun threw beams on his face, he squinted and didn’t walk normally since something neat and new was developing right in front of him.

The ocean looked positively radical behind the guy’s back. Blue diamonds sailing waves and all, there might be some diamonds in his eyes or it could be the fallibility of mortal eyes. Also the sun plopped its rear not that far away

Maybe it was. Cause it came off twenty different types of crazy to think a person had gems for eyes, especially a mortal.

The guy was a vision though. You guys knew the old tale about Helen of Troy, a beauty like no other with hair so golden many thought you snip a chunk and melt it down and make coins and eyes that gutted and healed the cracks in your soul, the face that launched a thousand ships everyone said. So stunning. Oh to see Helen of Troy. To watch Apollo’s sun dance on her skin. To see if her hair was really spun with gold.

Lovely women but if we were making comparatives here well— this guy could launch a million ships.

Look he was there. He saw her and he was seeing him so yeah, he was hotter. No contest.

It was almost insulting to see yachts and these cruise line ships drift over the water and not fucking come right here and whisk this guy away.

“Cool,” he pointed at himself, suddenly terribly awkward with introductions, and trudged through sand as he disconnected and reconnected their eyes. ‘”Keith.”

Keith.

Helen.

Pretty mortals had un-extraordinary names.

Keith trailed after him possibly and most believably because they’re strangers and he was going to a stranger’s house with good intentions. Lance liked to think it was cause his butt was very cute in these jeans and his shirt ran mighty short so strong gusts of air constantly flashed his lower back and the V of his pelvis.

Laundry machines were a mystery to him. Apparently certain clothes shrunk if you dried them.

Go figure.

Lance popped his key into the lock and unlatched it.

He pushed it open and let the guy peek in first from a comfortable distance.

The curtains were drawn back and shadows moved over the living room and the cozy kitchen. It smelled like salt air in here as though someone carried the whole ocean inside.

“Nice place,” Keith commented.

“That’s what I said to the man before I murdered him,” Lance joked.

Keith froze.

Oh no.

He was trying to be funny. Honest.

“My family thinks my humor is like a broken clock. I’m funny at least twice a day. Guess I used up my two chances.”

Keith unfroze, a smirk hedging his mouth.

Success. He scrubbed the buzz of his undercut. “Sorry my brain is still…”

“Ready for the throw down? I can make you tea or give you scotch.”

“That might hurt with my…”

“Oh yea. Right. So tea? You can watch me make it and everything, I promise.”

“Uh that sounds nice. Please, I mean. I won’t watch you. You seem decent.”

Lance showed him the hallway and opened the first door on the right, “Bathroom’s here. Don’t worry about getting blood on the towels.”

“Okay. I could use toilet paper really.”

“Nah, nah.” He refused. “I’ll be mad if you do.”

“Alright. Thanks. Again.” Keith turned.

Lance tapped his arm. “Oh before you do all that, how many sugars?”

“Three.”

“Cool, cool,” Lance sounded anything but. “I’ll go do that.”

Was he nervous?

Lance went through the cabinets and found a box of tea leaves. He filled a pot with water, set it on the stove, and added the leaves nearly emptying out the whole bag. His fingers sucked and were determined to fumble on every simple command.

Ugh, it was nerves.

Why?

Keith was pretty but shit man, he was a god damn god.

Hello, he was there since the start of ancient Greece.

Out of the many gods in this world and the next, mortals fixated on them the most. Shit just turn on the television and at least one show or movie about them and his time was on.

He was up the hierarchy too. Big Boss.  Had a lot of power in the old days, you didn’t want Poseidon mad at you. Mermaids sung songs in tribute. Sailors were his greatest or most insufferable worshippers. The flowers and corals in the shallow water loved to blossom when he walked the ocean floor. Oysters flaunted their pearls. Fish danced at his ankles. Shells carried the sound of his melody when he cupped the yawning mouth to one of his ear.

So like, try— _try—_ to find a cooler god than him.

He underestimated his strength and ripped one of the drawers out of its socket.

Lance glared at the single handed firm grip around the handle. The silverware and solid oak easily made it a hefty weight so it looked amusing to see a random honey brown Hispanic boy hold it like his girlfriend asked him to.

Sighing, he slid it back in.

No mortal had step into his home, maybe it was that. The feeling of a worshipper stepping into his temple.

Or maybe Keith was pretty and Poseidon had few mortal lovers in his lengthy lifetime.

Whatever, don’t look into it that much.

At least he didn’t let the tea boil over or burn his hand pouring it to the cup. He made a little over two cups, normally his eye measurements were up to scale. Too much care and precision went into the scooping of sugar. He wiped the rim down too and debated twice on whether he should have the mug’s handling face outward.

What if that was too forward?

Keith popped into the kitchen, face clean of blood. The gash looked viciously red and skin surrounding flushed up noticeably pink but the bleeding appeared to stop.

Keith lifted the mug by the rim. “I tried to clean up afterward but I didn’t have anything to use and I didn’t want to go through your shit. So if it’s a little bloody…”

“I’ve seen plenty of blood.”

Keith went mute

Why of all the gods was he cursed with this insufferable mouth?

“I don’t kill people,” he explained hastily. “I literally have no time. I’m always surfing and I just got a job and my manager hates me. She makes me work in the back like a hideous troll. I have no time to kill anyone. My neighbors would probably report me because they want my place. I outbid the couple next door. I’m certain they have placed a hit on my life.”

“Actually I was assuming you got into fights,” he said. He had both hands cradling the mug and stared into the tea and started, unprovoked. “My boss is shit too and I like to surf too. I would be here more often if it wasn’t a pain to walk with my board all the way. My car got totaled last week. At the time I wasn’t paying my insurance cause I had other bills so yea, they won’t cover the car.”

Keith brought the mug to his lips and blew on the steamy clouds.

Lance mirrored him, chuckling. “Want me to taste test it first?”

“No. If I start to feel woozy I’ll just throw it at you.”

“Ow man. My face.”

“Then you better hope that doesn’t happen.” He tipped it back and licked the taste off his lips, testing the flavor. “It’s good.”

“I fucked up and made extra if you want a refill.” The god flicked his thumb casually at the warm pot, smoke clouds rising thinly.

“Man I already got blood on your towels and all. Don’t wanna put you out.”

“Ain’t no thing. Besides you acted all heroic back there, you should be rewarded.”

“With tea?”

With a flush of embarrassment, he crudely brushed a hand into the thick waves of his hair and looked around the kitchen. “I haven’t done groceries so it’s the only thing I have. Um, there’s Dortios. I think they’re stale cause my brother didn’t tie the bag.”

“Kidding, man,” he said. Something too warm to be friendly and too lusty not to be considered flirtatious started lazy on Keith’s lip.  “So you any good on that board?”

And Lance suddenly got it— why humans chased humans. The purist of pretty faces, pretty legs, pretty bodies.

Cause at the start of that teasing smile, on the beat of a heart time shifted between infinitely endless  like staring down a long corridor and the numbers on a timer, the seconds measured and accounted for.

Countless and limited.

What a fancy trick.

To be moving rapidly through time and to be stagnant in it like the higher forces ruling this earth hit the pause button.

It was marvelous.

It was also terrifying  cause gods didn’t experience these blimps in their psyche but yet he was. Whole body reacting as though someone crudely shut down his mainframe without using the proper steps and rebooted his entire system.

All over a fucking mortal too while he was at it.

Shit.

Fucked up thing though?

He wanted a second go at it like _urgently_ , _profoundly, vitally_. The stars would fall from the skies, the sun would cease to rise, no moon would crown the night, the sea would never pull in and out of the shore unless he had a second go.

“Catch me on the waves and you might figure that out.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Parking was a bitch.

 Flashy cars parked in the driveway so Lance had to circle the neighborhood three times until he spotted a space wide enough to wedge in the Wrangler. His GPS had the worst sense of navigation so he was fashionably tardy to his own party.

He walked up two blocks before the air brought him the scent of divine powers in mass gathering. His nose filtered out each aroma— the rains of Zeus, the dry heat of Apollo, the honey sweetness of Dionysus, sage and dogwood of Artemis, the burning iron of Athena, the scent of the world frozen in frost of Hades.

When they were in harmony, they smelled like the earth did at its beginning. Young and bright.

When they fought, the winds blew sulfuric gusts like clouds of pollution.

Thankfully, they only smelled like a group of frat kids with an unlimited supply of sweet drinks and hearty food.

Hunk’s home had one floor to it but that floor took up every square inch of space. Thick white columns lifted the roof. The pathway up to the house was polished silver pebbles, treated with chemicals so the white veins illuminated like starlight. Two lions made of creamy stone stood like sentinels at the front door with their mouth opened on a roar.

He knocked and touched the crown of one of the lions. Shit was actually legit stone and not the cheap knockoffs found at HomeDepot.

Hunk jumped out and scooped Lance into a bear hug, squeezing him until Lance coughed.

He set him down and his face dissolved. “You’re not surprised. Who was it?”

Lance showed his hands. “What? Who said I wasn’t? I had no idea you would throw me a party. No idea”

“Sure, then why don’t you look surprised?” Hunk persisted.

“Uh.”

A severity darkened the Wine God’s face. “Who betrayed my trust?”

He tipped his head back. “Gods.”

“ _Poseidon.”_ Hunk called in Greek.

“Using the real name, huh? Alright, alright. It might have been Artemis, who knows,” he gave a jerky shrug. “Certainly not I.”

Hunk pulled him inside, closing the door. They wandered through the place, a mini tour on the way to the party going on in the back.

Hunk’s kitchen was to die for— real white marble with grey veins, espresso cabinets, a fat island with mountains of popped liquor bottles, mostly sweeteners for delicious cocktails.

Hunk sat Lance at the island, pulling out a wooden stool.

He went around and grabbed a glass, a metal mixer, and a tub of cold ice.

Coming back, he said. “I specifically told Hades not to tell her.”

Lance saw him through half empty bottles. “You do remember you’re the god of wine and festivals. At some point this would have happen.”

The god started filling the mixer. Centuries together would tell you a person’s taste in alcohol.

Hunk snatched one bottle, twisted the cap, and poured and put it back. The next bottle he didn’t even glance up, just plucked it and measured two ounces before he returned it. “That’s not all I do.”

“Every year you threw a festival for all the gods. All. There’s quite a few of us.”

“We’re family, you’re supposed to celebrate a birth.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I won’t invite you then,” Dionysus suggested.

“Excuse me, you don’t have a party without Poseidon. It’s a bad omen if I don’t show up at a party.”

“What the fuck, there is literally nothing that proves that. “

“I live in the sea. Sailors sail the sea. They drink heavily. I drink heavily. Are you not seeing the parallels?” Lance slapped the marble.

“No. But I see your bullshit. You might convince Hermes of that but not me.”

A glass frosted with condensation passed over Hunk’s mountain of alcohol poisoning.

Poseidon drank up and moaned, “By the gods.”

“No shit. Ain’t no mortal out there that can make you a better drink. Lets go in the back, everyone’s waiting. Pidge and I have something fun planned.”

He hopped off the stool, “Fun and gods usually ends up with something destroy.”

“Oh. No this is completely family safe.”

Back of the house had a stoned patio with an infinity pool at the edge of the land and a brick fireplace and casually in the background of honey brown bodies and the glowing fire was a damn majestic view of the sky and sea, the kind you saw in stock photos when you entered beautiful Cali homes. Burnt wood and the soft murmur of voice floated into the house, Hunk left the glass door propped ajar so you were never really separated from the party. A lifeline tied you back.

Shay was the first to notice him and launched her whole weight into the hug.

More than just some god of the sea, Lance was also the god of holding his drunk through whatever dangers that thwarted him. Didn’t lose so much as a sip of his special cocktail.

He hugged her back with one arm, feeling the heat of the fire on her skin and the powerful aroma of godly woods in her hair. She wore a cream halter swim suit that befitted her plump curves and a sheer scarf knotted on the points of her hips. 

She leaned back, kissing his cheek. “I missed you.”

“Listen I know you’re curious if I snitched on you and I did.”

“Poseidon, have some balls,” she pinched his ass.

Hunk folded his arms over his chest and tried to act furious. “Art, we talked about your big mouth.”

Lance almost snorted his drink through his nose.

Shay glared at the Sea God, “Shut up, loser.”

“Let me use your stupid scarf thing to wipe my nose,” he went to undo the knot.

Artemis squirmed, “Do you have any idea who made this? It came all the way from Italy.”

“So no?”

She pinched him again.

“Think I hear a smartass, Poseidon must be here,” a cultured voice called from Lance’s left.

 When the scent of burning metal wafted near he knew instantly that the long legged African beauty was Athena.

She smiled, opening her arms, the wind carried the long train of her summer dress. Silver hair was tangled and done up like the women in old Greece used to do, it made her neck longer and elegant and showed the strong muscles in her neck and shoulder.  Her arms were as sculpted as his but hey, what was the goddess of war to do sit— on her ass and not be a warrior. Not likely.

“It’s been forever,” she pecked his check and ruffled his hair like owner would to a dog. “Oh and before you ask, it’s Allura.”

Poseidon gestured to his body, “Lance for now.”

“You smell like sea.” She sniffed him and made a face.

“Duh.”

“No like your ass went into the ocean and only got out to be here. You’re boring.”

Lance tipped his drink toward her and cocked one eyebrow. “Coming from the woman auditioning to be the next Wonder Woman. Where’s Hades, she’ll be happy to know I made a modern reference.”

Allura smirked to herself, trailing her nails over her mouth. “Well I did beat a certain god back in the day.”

“You and that olive tree can get fucked. How was I supposed to know they wanted one?”

“Look you’re a lame god. It’s okay.”

“I’m going to push you into the pool.”

Allura grabbed the tail of her skirt. “This outfit is too cute to get wet.”

“Then shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Alright, in the pool you go.” He looped an arm around her waist.

“Zeus, Zeus,” Allura cupped her hands and shouted for reinforcement.

Lance gasped, “Really, you’re gonna pull that card.”

Instead of bracing himself like a wise god would, he passed Hunk his drink and pressed his shoulder to tip Allura into the pool. She yelped at the edge, pressing against him; he had normal shoes with traction and the warrior goddess decided to sport heels. So every inch she gained, she lost in the next second.  Lance manipulated the water so it splashed upwards and sloshed on the dry stone.

Which was funny at the time but it left him defenseless to the incoming bear hug from a man who ate up bodybuilders for brunch. Air pistoled out his mouth when his feet went off the ground. Allura dove out of the kick zone.

Zeus bounced Lance up and down, excited and unfairly strong. “ _Poseidon. Poseidon.”_

“ _Can’t… breathe,_ ” he wheezed, patting Zeus’s beefy bear arms.

“Oops,” Zeus squeaked and eased him down.

Yea, oops. Totally forgot I have godly strength and you have a mortal body.

The bone crushing aside, Zeus was actually a sweet guy. A by the books kind of guy who would make you go to bed at a reasonable time. Sure he did half of the bullshit mythology books spoke of and on a rare occasion he was a dick of godly proportions but Zeus cared deeply and profoundly for his family. Mortals liked to think they all couldn’t stand each other, which happened but all families were like that, and waited for opportunities to fuck over the other.

Zeus pulled Lance in for a second and less lethal hug. Lance couldn’t get his arms around the god and laughed into the muscle of his chest. “You’re so small,” Zeus said.

“All that muscle is dead weight in the water, be real sad if you drowned or something.”

“Same old Poseidon,” he squeezed him once more and clapped his back.

He had soft grey eyes like the pebbles that covered the surface of lakes, short black hair, and a pink scar slashed over the bridge of his nose. His looks could make him an easy model even with the scar and its coarse bumps.

“Technically it’s Lance now.”

“Oh yea. I’m Shiro.”

“I’m jumping in quick that way we’re all formally introduced and can stop with the new names.” Apollo walked over and hugged Lance. The lanky ginger smiled, the apples of his cheek and the slope of his nose dotted with freckled. He had an impressive woodsman beard and a thick Aussie accent.  “Coran.”

Lance squinted, checking him over head to toe. “You look old.”

Apollo flipped him off and chuckled. “Fuck you. What age are you, fifteen? Can you even drink legally?”

“This was the only guy with the nicest cock.”

Hades joined the circle of gods, a child in comparison to their tall stature with her skinny legs and kid like face. She fixed the straps of her tank top that dipped over her shoulder.  “Why am I not surprised you would bring that up?”

“Shit, I should’ve thought of that,” Coran said. “I didn’t think you could make requests like that.”

“I told Hades it was the nicest cock ever or I stay in the ocean.”

“You’re the real MVP, Hades,” the gods toasted to her honor.

She rolled her eyes.

All the guys took their sip when Hunk decided to say, “Like my dick is nice.”

“Nah, nah. Mine is good too,” Coran explained. “I like the length.”

Shiro shrugged. “The size isn’t important.”

Lance pointed a finger, “Don’t you dare say it’s the motion of the ocean.”

“Well I won’t now.”

“We’re together after how long and you guys want to discuss dick size?” Allura criticized.

“I asked for a huge ass so I can’t say I’m any better than you guys.” Shay tossed in.

The guys grinned lecherously at her, Lance wiggled his eyebrows like an old pervert.  Hunk was the one to say it for the group. “Oh yea. We noticed.”

Coran cat called.

Shay pretended to be coy and twirl a lock of hair around her finger.

“Can I politely say you have all the back, Artemis?” Lance teased.

Pidge stared down into her glass, “This is why I didn’t go for a man. The penis gets in the way and interferes with everything. Plus these jackasses always wanna whip out their dick and compare.”

“Fine, we won’t but does Poseidon really have the nicest cock? You had to check it out first and you saw all of ours, so?”

“Seriously, you want an answer to that?”

The guys stared intensely.

Lance opened his eyes wide like _you better say I have the nicest cock or I’ll be mad_.

“Oh my— yes, yes. His is the nicest.”

Hunk, Shiro, and Coran groaned. Lance punched the air.

“Okay but nice looking or nice in length or girth?” Coran asked next.

Pidge smacked Lance on his side, “Just whip your dick out, I’m not answering these questions.”

“It’s not hard though. You’re a man, Hades. It doesn’t count until its erect.”

“We understand, bro. Take it out.”

“Okay.” He unzipped.

“Damn, it really is nice,” Coran tilted his head, rubbing his stubble.

Hunk made his own assessment. “Fuck, you win.”

Shiro tapped his chin, nodding. “Not bad at all.”

“Thanks.”

Shay laughed, “I hope it gets bigger than that.”

“Give me that stupid Italian scarf.”

Allura played with her cell phone, recording the whole event. “Man if only the scholars knew that the most valuable thing to a god is his cock. So Facebook worthy or not?”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

The gods lounged around the fire, all in varying states of laziness and repose. Lance occupied one corner of the sectional with Allura nestled on his lap as though she wasn’t formerly the goddess of war and didn’t out reach him with her near six foot frame. He combed her hair with one hand and cupped a cold beer in the other, listening to Coran retell their most embarrassing stores. The stories mortals wrote about them in books, the films made in their likeness.

Shay and Hunk were cozy in the middle, the wine god sat on the floor between the goddess’ legs and let her manipulate his hair. Shiro drifted from awake to slumber on the longest end of the sectional, arm thrown over his eyes while he used Pidge’s bony lap as his pillow. She flicked his nose whenever he started to snore loudly.

The sky was cloudless and a blueberry black. Stars tried to twinkle light. A breezy wind blew off the coast and fanned their fire heated skin.

Coran fetched more beers and passed them around. He parked his ass down, groaning with human fatigue. “’Sides the ache and pain, mortals bodies aren’t too bad.”

“Food taste amazing,” Shay agreed. “No wonder they get so fat. It’s delicious.”

Coran patted his barely there beer gut, “I can attest to that.”

“Has anyone gotten hurt yet?” Lance asked, shadows from the fire place fluttered over the bones of his face.

Various hums of agreements came from the gods.

“I stepped on a Lego. I thought for sure I was going to die,” Hunk said grimly.

“I broke three fingers,” Allura announced, the vibrations of her heart drilled into Lance’s ribcage. “What, I was boxing and still learning my body.”

“Makes sense,” Lance patted her arm.

“The bigger question is, has anyone fucked yet?”

Pidge scowled at Shay, “Why did I give you a body?”

“Because we’re family and you love me,” she answered sweetly.

Lance looked around at his family and remembered the years prior to this when the earth was younger and simpler, when they perched in ivory thrones on Mt Olympus and felt so enormous and grand at the sight of tiny mortals with their bird thin bones, when the waters were so responsive to him, when the bottom of the depth glittered in gold, when an disagreement with his family could spell devastation and death for mortals.

So long ago, it seemed, like a fairytail. To mortals, they’re gods but to other gods they were no better than humans.

It was difficult at first to grip that reality, gods were proud and stubborn, but each day made it easier. Each day taught him that he shouldn’t mourn his lost but be happy and grateful that he had this, his family and the chance to experience more of this earth.

How fucking humbling for Poseidon.

“Now before I forget,” Hunk got up, “I said we had a special surprise for everyone. Wait here.”

He went inside and returned a minute later with his hands behind his back.

 “Ta-da!” Hunk whipped out a handful of DVDs but not any mere movies, they were…

“Clash of the Titans?” Lance squinted at the box. “Why are there two?”

“One’s a remake.”

“Jesus how many movies did they make about Hercules?” Shay complained, flipping through the cases. “Your kid isn’t that amazing, Shiro.”

The god of lightning lifted his arm, “Hunk, you didn’t.”

Hades’ smile turned into a nefarious smirk that only the god of the Underworld could master. “Oh we did.”

Lance burst out laughing and slapped his palm on the cushions. His sister glanced up to ask what was so funny when he showed her the back of the case with Disney versions of Zeus and Hades. “They made Hades a fucking goth, I can’t—“ He couldn’t finish, too much air went out and not enough came in.

“Whatever. At least we’re in it, loser,” she retorted.

“Are you kidding me, they don’t have me?” Lance grumbled as he read the summary to see whether or not Pidge was telling the truth.

“None of yall should be mad,” Coran started after chugging a swig. “We lot are never in any of those movies.”

“You were in Troy.”

“That was a statue and Achilles beheaded it. It doesn’t count.”

Poseidon snickered into his hand, “You still salty about that?”

“I’ll show you salt, Water Boy.” Apollo bickered, shuffling his feet to stand on them until he realized his bones were jelly at the moment.

“Water Man,” he corrected with an air of superiority. “Did we not agree my dick is all supreme? Bow down to the king.”

A decorative pillow smacked Water Man in the face and tumbled down and rolled over Allura’s bent head.

Allura groaned in annoyance and kicked the pillow, “Can we watch one before these idiots do another dick Olympics?”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Four a.m. Plenty of people were off catching up on their Zs, Mondays made busy bees out of everyone.

Unless you’re an eon old water god, then you didn’t catch sleep.

 Nah, you caught those waves.

And what a sight being in the center of this empty ocean. Zero people. Birds soar by, seeing the shore picked clean. Emptiness had a peculiar effect on vacant spaces, sounds traveled farther.  Details rushed in with sharp clarity. A sense of peace and content filled the gaps in your brain.

And that was what he had currently— peace, enlightenment, and his dick receding into his body. Sea was frosty as hell in the pre-dawn light.  Had on a black wet suit with blue stripes sprinting vertically from the hip to the calf. They’re tricky to jump into but it beat the hell out of freezing his balls off.

The sun wasn’t out yet but he could see its approach slowly making its way as the earth rotated. Saw it coming back, ready to burn through the marine layer resting over the sea.

His board bobbed under baby swells, the water a profound shade of indigo that it bordered to bruised plum, Lance could talk to the sea and ask her to toss over a few mighty waves for him to ride but he’d rather let her to the magic and have him wait and work for it.

He caught a decent one no less than twenty minutes ago but she went on radio silence after it. Poor thing probably wasn’t used to the Sea God making these early morning rounds on her.

Like who gave a shit about some Cali surfer, a dime a dozen.

But oh my god, Poseidon in my neck of the woods?

I should do something.

Lance caressed his palm over the water, speaking to her kindly in Greek, “ _No rush ,dove. Take your time.”_

Water splashed his hand, the cold cutting as frost. _“Atta girl.”_

He cut the whole _chatting with the sea like his woman_ short when the sound of someone slicing through the water ricocheted off the empty space.  A shadow moved in the mist over the water until it lost that grainy film and gained vivid detail, and guess what— it was Helena of L.A., magnificent and skin an ice white in a wet suit. The shave part of his undercut looked a little longer since the last he’d seen him, he had most of it pinned up in a mini ponytail.

Keith straightened his spine when his board aligned neat to Lance’s.

He snapped his fingers at him as if conjuring up the memory of him. “Lance, the tea guy and occasional serial killer.”

“And you’re… Keith who I was going to kill but changed my mind about. How’s that lip doing?”

A scab had formed on the spot, Keith pressed on it lightly, “A little painful but good.”

“So it’s not in bad taste if I own your ass on the waves?”

“No but it will be funny as hell when I kick yours.”

Lance was smirking from L.A. to the bowels to the Underworld when he dipped his fingers into the sea. Godly power rumbled down his arm and drilled straight to the ocean floor, the sound of it like a hammer hitting a damp cloth.  “I’ll let you have the next one as a warm up. Would be awful if you pulled something when we really start surfing.”

And that ink of power wound its way to the original source in the form of a mounting wall of water. A perfect surf with the right height and momentum behind it to keep it traveling for more than a brief second or two.

Keith’s eyes zoomed in real fast on it, a spark of determination and concentration had his body bracing and tensing like a big cat sighting a lonely elk.

He zipped off like a bullet, moving in swift to position himself and the board so the wave carried them and not batted him like yesterday’s trash. The wave lifted the back of his board and Keith hopped to his feet, body well tuned to her.

Lance was expecting the usual show, he lived off the beach so he had seen it all from pros to newbies so it started him with a shock when Keith, with his sweet pretty face,  scaled that water wall and rode it like he was god of the sea and Lance over there was damn chump change.

The wave started to fold in and Keith dropped from the white peak to fit his crouched body into the forming tube. One second Lance watched his board kicked up spray, hands hanging by his knees, and then Lance saw water close where Keith was.

He was out in time before the tube sealed completely, guiding the board over choppy ripples

When Keith paddled back, his angular Helen of Troy-eques face was stitched with the threads of passion and flat out smugness.

And yea, that was badass. Lance could admit that but Keith rode waves and he made then so who was the real bad motherfucker here. It was gonna take a _hell_ lot more to put Poseidon out of commission.

Lance made a so-so motion with his hand.

“That was good for my first surf of the day. Don’t start.”

“I’m not saying its bad—“

“Then nut up if you can do better.”

He cracked his knuckles, sucking his lip so he didn’t chuckle like a villain stripped out of a Disney film. “I hope you skipped breakfast cause you’re going to eat all that shit you spewing.”

“You’re writing all these checks but can you cash them, Lance?”

Two thought occurred to him. One, _I’m personally shipping you off to the afterlife_. The second, _you’re dangerously close to becoming my mortal_.

Since his pride was on the line, Lanced focused on thought number one and stored the second for later when he had the privacy, zero sub freeing temperatures and the thinking space in his noggin to dissect all the pretty ways he could drown Keith like he did to cities and bring him over and over into nose diving climaxes.

Some magic, itty bitty droplets of willpower, and a truck load of hard pumping testosterone from the tips of his hands and feet and the ocean— the wife, the lover, the child of Poseidon— plucked up Poseidon’s order like a waitress and whipped it over to the cook and conjured up the order.

It was a tall order but the ocean rarely failed.

The tide rose, starting off like a tiny baby bump on the surface, and birthed in an elegant wave. Wide, firm, and neat. The Coach to Keith’s knockoff wave bought off a seller on eBay. Ideal. When you pictured wave, they looked like _that_.

Aqua blue with diamonds embedded in the water.

Lance peaced out and raced in front of the tide. Hopped to his feet as the water reeled him in like a fish on the lure, then fucking shredded that wall of blue, racing up to the crest and into the air for a measure of a heartbeat before another force of nature —gravity— yanked his ass back down.

He tore down and snapped the board at the base of the tide and cruised upward again. The peak rolled inward, short on energy and bumping particles, but that fine with Lance cause he close to the cutoff point and smoothed his board easily with the bend of the tide.

Didn’t have to look behind him and see the tide just flattened like she woke up strictly for him. That kind of timing had to send Keith through a fucking whirl, like _whot the fuck, I thought this dude was full of shit._

Lance did look to see that, gods were suckers for unadulterated awe.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

They hung out when he wasn’t with family or at the bookshop lugging up boxes of books from the front to the back and the back to the front.

They surfed the waves— blue ones, green ones, black ones. Waves that were crystal clear. Waves that mirrored their body and face on the water. Waves that were vengeful and angry swollen with the promise of a storm. Waves that challenged the tallest of the skyscrapers. Waves that crushed them hard and dove them into the dark recesses of the ocean where the sun didn’t cut through.

Sand caked their damp feet.

 Wet suits were still a pain to hop in and out off so after surfing during the dawn, they liked to unzip to their navel and have it hang off their waist as they bought tacos off a taco truck making rounds that day. The guys driving the truck had a coffee machine stuffed in the back and made them a pot for free. They’re brown and could pass for Mexican but one, Hector, was Greek and Columbian and let out a curse in Greek. Lance seized the opportunity and rattled on fluently in his mother tongue, pretending he didn’t see Keith’s face as he gawked, mesmerized and ravenous.

On days were the surf was sublime and Keith the magnet that sunk Lance in, he called him tender things in Greek. Whispered the words to himself. Thought them passionately in his mind. When he was very brave he said them as he and Keith straddled their boards and waited for the next swell.

Keith asked for translation but Lance wasn’t unveiling his heart yet.

Each time they went out on the water Keith reminded Poseidon that a lot of humans were extraordinary and that you didn’t need a temple or altars or the ability to summon krakens and menacing waves to be alive, to be happy, to feel like a god.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

The gods were having a family outing at the beach.

Why?

Well it was Lance’s turn to make plans, of course those plans involved the ocean.

He slapped the volleyball over the net and far, far out of bounds. Shiro and Coran balled their fists, counted to three, and threw down their weapons. Paper beat rock so Shiro cursed and trudged over dry sand.

 Pidge, Shay, and Hunk played the role of spectators and referee when the situation called for an unbiased party.  They tapped out thirty minutes ago when Shay’s boobs kept bouncing in her bikini and Pidge tripped over her own feet.

Losers.

Cerberus was there too, bringing in the chicks with his long tongue and his own pair of doggie sunglasses.

Allura was on his side of the net into spandex shorts and a sports bra, which benefitted cause she was heavier on top even with all her strength training and boxing. Girl could eat Lance, Shiro, and Coran for breakfast and have room for coffee.

The pixie god rolled up a flyer and spoke into the cone, “Try being subtle, jackass.”

Lance grabbed her paper megaphone, crushed it in his hand, and returned the crumpled ball to her.

She turned it over, checking to see if it was salvageable. “I was using that to insult you.”

“Why, you never needed that before.”

“It’s funnier with it though.”

“Can I ask a question? It’s for the women but since you are one as we speak, I thought to include you.”

Hades scratched Cerberus behind the ear. “Oh how progressive.”

Shay squeezed lotion on her palm, shaking the bottle and slapping the excess collected at the bottom, and spread it down her arms. Her skin glowed, a shimmery shade of brown earth. She started on her calves next, bending forward at the waist. “What’s the question?”

“I’m curious too,” Allura ducked under the umbrella that shaded the stationary gods, leaning on the side of her hips astride of Dionysus who reclined soundly on a towel.

Lance buried his toes in the sand. “There’s a mortal I think is cute as hell and I want to claim him, how do I do it? Do I kill challengers?”                                                                                                                                                                    

“Whoa, whoa. First no one does that killing the competition thing. Second you can’t claim people anymore, Poseidon. Romance is much different now.”

Lance chewed his nail, “Then how do I make sure no one takes him?”

“Aw, little Poseidon’s crushing super hard.”  Shay gushed and clapped her hands over her mouth before she realized her palms were sticky with lotion.

“Well he’s like…beautiful and funny. He has the heart of a warrior.”

Allura smiled fondly, “Aw.”

“I also want to fuck the shit out of him.”

The guys snorted, Coran flat out crumpled to his side and Hunk startled from his nap to choke on his own spit.

Hades pressed arbitrary patterns over Cerberus’ spine. “Oh. Yea we don’t need to know all of that. There are lines, bro. What mortals want is be romanced with a grand gesture. Something that shows you’re committed to them for the long haul.”

“A grand gesture?”

“Yes and I’ll tell you how to show him that you’re serious. You’ll want to gather a bunch of memes.”

“Memes?”

“Hades, you’re evil.”

Hunk knocked over Pidge, “Don’t listen to Hades. Gifs are only way to a man’s heart.”

Allura groaned, “Our brother is taken with a mortal and you all want to mislead him. I know the way, Poseidon. This is what you must do— go on YouTube and…”

“Did you forget we are at the beach, where there’s water? Hello God of the Sea.”

Shiro butted in, breath labored from the jog across the sand. “Hello, God of the Sea. Is Poseidon throwing a tantrum?”

“Man if I had my trident, ya’ll be fucked.”

“Poseidon got a mortal crush,” Shay crossed her legs.

“Ah, I would give you advice but Hades told me my methods are unethical.”

“You advocated kidnapping my wife,” Hades deadpanned

“That’s not how I said it. I said bring her to your domain which is totally different.  You’re married right, and happy?”

Apollo parked next to Zeus, stealing the ball and balanced it on a forefinger. “No offense, Shiro but you had the worst advice when it came to women.”

“Can we forget I said anything?” Lance complained.

Really, why did he think his family would have any knowledge in the romance section. Aphrodite could’ve help him in a jiffy but the Love Goddess was currently M.I.A on a month long cruise and while the ocean had all types of terrains under the uneven surface— channels, caves, volcanic rock, coral reefs, the forgotten treasure of legendary pirates— it sorely lacked cell towers. Hence, _this person is unavailable please try your call again, good bye._

He could wait. If he thought about it Keith wasn’t unreasonably attractive.

“Lance?” Keith called.

All heads cocked to the noise like pups to the sound of a squeaky yellow ball. The sea god was the last to respond, knowing if he looked— if he fucking peeked at Keith he would eat those very words.

He looked.

Internally, he cried.

In a landfill of the beautiful and the golden, Keith was the cardiac inducing Whopper of gorgeous, smoking, and the reason why bad looking men looked so _damn good_. The lovechild of pretty like a woman and handsome like a man.

Everyone was tanned brown and honey on this sunny day and here Keith was marble stone and vanilla ice cream, looking good enough to melt and freeze you. Quite the conundrum.

Also, he had on shorts and a poorly fitting tank top so all that time in the water _showed_. Like that groomed purebred you trotted for the judges at the elite annual dog show. Pronounced calves, toned thighs, chiseled arms.  If you looked down at the correct angle, you could see under his shirt and see a flat tummy and pink nipples. He had the body that knew no gym but the ocean. No supplements. No free weight. No treadmill. Just mother nature as his drill instructor. It went without saying how enormous of a turn on that was.

Fuck.

Time to eat his words. “Sup,” he waved, then instantly thought about how dumb he must look to Keith and his entire family like a fish out of the water.

It felt safer not to side eye anyone.

“I went by your place but it was locked up. Thought you might be here.”

“Yea. Today is family time. That’s Allura, Shiro, Shay, Hunk, Pidge, and Coran. Everyone this is Keith.”

Keith’s stare lingered long on Pidge, Shiro, and Coran.

“Uh our parents are kinda like Angie and Brad. They wanted to have a kid from every race.”

“Sorry. I was just wondering cause,” he gestured to Lance, dessert brown and blue in the eyes.

“Actually me and Coran were the starter kids,” Pidge explained. “Everyone else is adopted. Our folks are redheads.”

Helplessly, Lance swung a arm out and said apologetically. “Normally we leave her chained in the attic.”

Pidge scooped sand, the golden particles raining between the gaps of her fingers, and flung it at him. “If we would chain anyone it would be you.”

“See,” he pointed. “The world isn’t prepared for this kind of evil.”

Keith smiled, a tiny thing that was no more than the quirk of his lips. “Well I’ll let you get back to it.” He slowly backed up.

“Whoa, whoa,” Shay barked, pushing to her feet. “Anyone who is a friend of my brother is a friend to me. Stay, stay.”

Lance went silent with anger and glared, mustering his best _I will drown you in the ocean and bury you under an island_ expression. It failed.

The ocean bucked up water. It splashed two beach dames strolling on the golden sand.

“I don’t wanna butt in,” Keith said.

Allura joined in and stood up too and put a hand on Keith’s arm, “No butting. Come, come. We are dying to hear how you haven’t strangle Lance yet. Sit right here.”

The girls planted Keith between them and flipped their long, silky hair. Passing bench presses downright gawked cause one surfer dude had two smoking babes sitting sweet and pretty and Lance was like, _these goddesses are all over my mortal._

“You kinda look like that model who posed on Sports Illustrated,” Keith squinted at Shay. His stubby toes wiggled, free for Lance’s viewing pleasure in sandals.

Toes weren’t his kink, Keith just had the cutest set out there okay?

You counted piggies or whatever off them. All ten straight to that bank.

“I am that model.”

“O-oh shit. Uh, are you a model too?” He turned his head and asked Allura.

Allura blushed, “Aww. You’re too sweet. I’m not but thank you.”

Pidge coughed and waited expectantly. “Excuse me but you didn’t ask if I was a model?”

“Are you?”

“No but thanks for asking.”

“Do I have to ask the dog too?”

“He would appreciate it.”

Keith leaned over and caught Cerberus’ glossed out face. “Are you a model? Do you pose for Pedigree?”

“Aw,” Pidge cooed at the dog. “Someone thinks you’re a handsome boy.”

Jealously landed with paper wings and funneled the nectar straight through his bloodstream. Lance opened his mouth but no sound came out.

Coran tossed the volleyball and punted it with the side of his fist on the spiral down, it bounced off the back of Lance’s noggin. The god’s head moved a smudge forward but that was it.

Coran stuck two fingers in his mouth and blew. “Yo, Lance. Game, remember?” He thumbed at the wine god,” We’re subbing you in, Hunk.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Beaches tended to be noisy— with the waves breaking, kids screaming, and the chicks gossiping, and the seagulls complaining— so unless you were in the conversation you didn’t hear much of it. Of course this law decided to bend for him so he was in the game and in the conversation at once, catching the sound of Shiro’s hand slapping true on one side of the ball and Keith’s small breath of laughter the kind he used with unfamiliar people he was growing familiar with.

Lance’s horrid concentration set them back three points. Hunk’s bank slicked with beads of sweat as he tried to compensate for Poseidon’s short comings but, Poseidon seriously I’m one guy and not that active of one please pay attention.

Coran served the ball, having a silent conversation solely through eye contact with Shiro before making the play, Shiro followed it to the net and leaped up to spike it.

Hunk came up short.

And Lance thought he heard Keith say the word “girlfriend”, which could not be true.

His name was Keith.

Come on.

“That’s what I’m talking about Shiro,” Coran cheered.

Shiro rubbed his palm, “I think it hit too hard. My hand’s red.”

Apollo examined the redness, “Eh, maybe dial it back. You don’t wanna end up like Allura and break your shit.”

“I heard that.”

“Alright, this is embarrassing. I’m stepping in,” Keith said and toed out of his sandals. His shirt went next cause the heat grew merciless and provided no relief and Lance wondered how someone regularly exposed to the sun could stay so pale. To thwart each attempt.

He patted Lance’s bicep and jostled the god back to the game.

Lance pivoted, sunlight streamed in his vision. He saw the white of Keith’s skin, the color of a hundred winters, hair spilled over the left side of his head as the surf crashed in and heralded the wind. Words floated to his mind, words like godly which made no sense when Keith was a mortal but maybe that was how people found god. They found them in others.

A god in a mortal body finding his god as a mortal.

Irony meet Poseidon. Poseidon meet irony.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Lance considered Pidge’s words _a grand gesture, commitment;_ well what better way to fill out the requirements than to show a man god. Which Keith won’t believe if he just told him. No, there had to be an demonstration. Tangible truth or Lance was another nutball.

So he sniffed out the ocean for the weakest currents.

Been on the water for about an hour when Keith called it, blue eyes calculated the movement of the sea. They swept down then off to the horizon, then they tracked back to Lance as sunbeams blazed into his irises, producinf a nasty sapphire, the precise color of the sea before she furled her belly taller than cities.

 “It’s dead. No sets are gonna come in.”

Good, he thought, it better be if this plan was going to work. He wasted no effort in finding the shore with dead waves but the strength, the courage to place himself in a vulnerable spot—the tax of that was considerable.

Gods didn’t scare easy.

Yet his hands trembled.

His heart jackhammered.

Panic poisoned his bloodstream.

Human emotions flagged him from every direction. One broke over him for another to come in the opposite direction and submerged him under water. Rejection was a possibility and his mind thought up the ways his confession could go wrong. Maybe the tender touches administered to him were under the title of friendship and not masked desire. Maybe he caught Keith staring cause Keith happened to be gazing by chance and not by purpose.

Doubt riddled him. Found holes and burrowed deeper or made new ones Lance overlooked.

Keith flicked his thigh and jutted his head to the white sand, “Let’s dip.  Maybe we can get some decent wave over at—“

Lance stuttered, “L-let’s wait it out. You might be surprise.”

“Bro even you know there ain’t nothing coming this way.”

_Something will,_ Lance thought, _I can make it happen._

“So you wanna surf?”

Keith made a face and sliced his hand laterally. “Well I didn’t come here for my balls to shrink.”

“What kind of wave would you want?”

“The ocean takes requests?” He joked.

“Nah I’m serious. Any wave, what would it be?”

“I don’t…I guess something tall you know. Something big so I can see over the beach and shit. Why are you asking?”

“What if I told you I could make you that wave?”

“I would think you’re high and be mad you didn’t share any if you’re having that kind of trip,” said Keith. He kicked the water and floated closer and checked Lance’s eye. “Your eyes look normal though.”

“I’m not high.”

Keith leaned back. “Good or I would punch you for trying some dumb shit like that.”

“But I can make you that wave.”

“Like Aquaman.”

Please, Aquaman took a chapter out of Poseidon’s book.

“Better than Aquaman.”

Keith titled his head, sunbeams bleached his face. He shielded his eyes to it, looking through hand binoculars. “Who could be better than Aquaman?”

“Maybe a god.”

“Don’t gods have better shit to do than make nice waves.”

Water chopped where Lance splayed his hand over it, magnetized to the god. “Some gods have more free time than others.”

“So you, a god, are going to make a wave better than Aquaman for me?” Keith questioned, voice dry.

He grinned,” Say please first.”

Keith waited, then closed his eyes. “Okay. _Pretty please_.”

Poseidon collapsed his fingers, bending them at second knuckle like he grasped a ball in his palm, and reached into the ocean.  It was as simple as shipping off the bill and expecting the check the next day but he couldn’t let it be so simple, no Keith would get a wave that reminded him why the summers made you feel immortal and untouched by the hands of time, why people wanted to be kiss on the shore, why sand filled your shoes, why—no matter how many trips you took to it— the ocean felt the same but different.

A tide rose, elegant and with no given warning to its arrival, and rose until its white caps seemed to meet the clouds. It hovered there like a man made fountain. Water climbed the tide’s spine to the white foam, then nose dove down the slope back into the sea. It was a shot cut out of a big producer’s film and edited into reality.

It was spellbinding.

A thing of beauty.

People fucking dropped and worshipped at miracles like this one.

“So how’s that, better than Aquaman huh?” Lance fired a glance back, and instead of awe and worship painted over Keith’s pretty face, he had a paleness ,a sickly one, to his complexion.

Thankfully, Keith had the foresight and kindness to jerk his head to the right and vomit.

Well out of all the possible options, he figured vomit was better than Keith fainting or screaming.

They sat on the uncomfortable bends of rocks on the cove, their boards were shelved on the wall of rock air drying while Keith emptied out his stomach. Lance plopped down, a close he could dare without endangering himself to the vomit zone.

Keith coughed, head lowered between his legs.

“Now be honest, was it the egg Mcmuffin from McDonalds or the whole god thing that made you puke?”

“Let’s go with option two,” Keith said, still bowed.

“Oh. But I did make you that wave.”

Keith’s spine tensed but it was another dry heave. “Shut. Up.”

“You need time to process, that’s cool.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Normally people don’t tell me to go fuck myself after I do that. Everyone’s like ‘please have mercy on me’ or ‘I never intended to anger thee’. First time someone said that to me. You should be proud. I’ve been alive a long time.”

“You know where I said to shut up? Please do that.”

“Too much? Alright. I’ll wait.”

He waited.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Lance drummed his fingers on the bugle of his kneecap. Whatever wave of sickness that overwhelmed Keith left his system. Now the mortal stared blankly at his palms.

“It’s not a big deal,” Lance started.

A fire blazed in Keith’s eyes, which Lance would find spectacular to view if it weren’t directed at him like the barrel of a gun. “Not a big deal? Did you just say ‘it’s not a big deal?”

“Can I change my answer?”

“No!”

“Then I said just that.”

“It’s a fucking huge deal,” Keith corrected, loudly.

“Yup, it’s coming off that way.”

“Are you being a smartass?”

Lance searched for the right answer, “Uh—“

“So let me get this straight in my head, which is about to denote cause of you, you’re a god? Like a legitimate god, what you just did was god stuff?”

“Technically I can do cooler stuff than that but yea I’m a god and all.” He shrugged, like what can you do about it.

“Which god?”

“Poseidon.”

“Poseidon?”

“Yes.”

“Poseidon, the water dude with the fork?”

Poseidon gathered a calm breath and kindly explained all the errors in that statement. “Water dude? I am Poseidon. God of the Sea so get it right.” He inhaled again, reminding himself that Keith was his best bud and his severe, cardiac inducing mortal crush who walked on this earth for a minute in the life span of an immortal being. Keith knew the internet, waves, and motorcycles. Not Greek gods, immortal life, and water tricks.

 Gods were fable and sometimes an interesting gimmick for a film, book, or game. He bestowed the weight and value of something so ludicrous, an idea from another world, to a kid in the 21st century. Adjustment was required.

Lance continued, the annoyance in his voice dialed back in place of fondness. Keith wasn’t running for the hills or cursing him as some demon. He was here, sort of. “And second, it’s not a fork. It’s a trident. Why would I carry a fork, we didn’t have forks. I thought you mortals learned this in school. Come on, I’m one of the big bosses in Mount Olympus.”

Keith massaged his temples. “I kinda remember. Mostly we learned about Zeus.”

“Fucking gods, everyone’s all Zeus this and Zeus that. I love my brother but he is not the only cool one. I’m cool. We’re all cool. And for the record we insist Zeus to run everything cause we wanted to do our own thing at the thing. It’s was a lot of work.”

“Um…did I hit a nerve?”

“No. I’m just saying I’m pretty cool too.”

“So why the name ‘Lance’?”

“Well the body’s name is Lance.”

“Oh my god, did you possess a dude? Are there two people inside?”

“What, no! It isn’t like that, it’s just me in here. The host died a while ago.”

“The host? Died?”

“Ah, shit...You’re misunderstanding.  It’s all very consensual. He went into a coma and he had no family to claim him. At one point, the hospital would’ve cut him loose.”

“So I’ve been hanging around with a dead body.”

“No, you’ve been kicking it with a god in the body of a mortal. You look ill, are you going to puke again?”

Waves lapped Keith’s toes perched on a jagged rock as a token of comfort that Lance couldn’t offer physically. The gesture sailed over Keith’s head as he grumbled, “Oh I’m fine. Great! My best friend is a god in the body of a dead guy.”

Now, he didn’t want to argue but he was certain Keith wasn’t fine.

“The body came live without the soul. It happens to people more often than you realize. The people you mortals keep alive are empty. You hear the heart tick but the heart and mind has lost the warmth only a soul can provide.”

“Shit.”

Lance huffed a breath of laughter, “This is new to me too if that helps. I haven’t revealed myself to a mortal for centuries.”

 “Wait, is that how you’re really good at surfing? ”

“Actually I am good at it. My powers have little to do with it. ”

 “Are there like…more of you guys?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re all in empty bodies?”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“Why?”

“Well no one remembers us anymore. Gods need followers and prayers and offerings or our power diminishes. We grow bored and lonesome in our temples. There isn’t much to do when you have no following and little power. This is us enjoying our time. I doubt we’ll rise to power as we once were and I’m okay with that. We have no ill intent to mortals.”

“So you came here cause you were lonely?”

“Yes. My sea isn’t as it were. So much pollution harms it. My creatures are dying at a rapid rate and I can do little as I am to protect them. The ocean will always be my home but I couldn’t stay there any longer and watch.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I recycle if that helps.”

He laughed, “Well it’s good to know.”

“Are you the one who makes tsunamis and shit?”

“Not always. The sea has a will of her own. This earth is as much as a living thing as you and I are. Maybe my hurt and anger empowers her own feelings and creates the physical power to cause natural disasters. But it’s not always me doing it directly. I haven’t cause an earthquake or mass tsunami for years. My energy has been used to clean the sea and protect the creatures in my home.”

“I feel shitty.”

“Why?”

“Cause I yelled and for fucking up the earth.”

“The yelling I expected.  Besides the sea has been suffering long before you arrive.”

“Still.”

“My time here has shown me it is a useless thing to feel bad about things beyond my control. I spent centuries doing that and just now I see how much time I wasted.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Well I’m a slow learner. Don’t tell Hunk or Pidge I admitted that or I’ll never hear the end.”

“Wait are they gods too?”

“Shit. Fuck it, yea they’re gods. So is Shiro, Allura, and Shay.”

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t you mean gods?” Lance teased, that little heart reducing sensation bubbling up so rapidly, so viscerally were he not so familiar with experiencing around Keith, he might be concern for the health of his body.

Keith looked torn between giggling and strangling him. He chose to laugh. “Shut up, Lance. Or Poseidon?”

“No worries, you can still call me Lance. People might think it’s weird if you start calling me Poseidon actually.”

“It won’t bother you?”

“Nah,” Lance moved his head toward the ocean breeze. “I’m used to Lance anyway. My family calls me by my name in private. You can too when it’s just us but you don’t have to. Nothing has change.”

“Except that you’re a god and all,” Keith snipped sarcastically.

“True. You’re just aware of it now. So same shit.”

Keith talked with his hands, “Can I ask who’s who or is that…?”

Like he should not but as the situation was, Poseidon wouldn’t deny Keith much. “Fuck it, if they ask just say you figured it out. Um Pidge is Hades.”

It was radio silence and then, “…What?”

“Don’t tell me I have to explain who Hades is, I get me slipping under your radar but God of the Underworld bruh.”

“Nah, nah. I’m adjusting. That’s…creepy.”

“Believe me, I said the same.”

“Why a chick if you don’t mind?”

“Dunno, Hades is literally the weirdo of the family. Weird fuck is always doing some shit none of us can understand.”

Keith nodded, chewing on his lip. “Hades is a little girl,” he said, more to himself than to Lance.

“See it much funnier if you think of it like that.” Lance balanced his elbows on his thighs. “Let’s see…Hunk is Dionysus. Shay is Artemis. Allura is Athena. And Shiro is Zeus.”

“I checked out Zeus’ ass, oh my god.”

“Excuse me? You checked out my brother. You’re supposed to check me out”

“What?’

“Um, Hades said to demonstrate my level of commitment to you I had to do a grand gesture. This is my grand gesture. We don’t reveal ourselves to mortals. But I am cause,” he stopped, words going to a place beyond his godly reach, which was disarming cause few things were above him. He hoped Keith could fill in the blanks.

His pretty heartthrob turned , face hitting the sun and doing all the magic to dismantle a god, pink flamed his cheeks. “This is you telling me that you’re into me?”

“I would say I have it worse than that but yea, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Shit…I really wanna kiss you. But my breath.”

“I don’t care,” Lance said in a rush, weak all over. So weak. So fragile. So mortal. “I want it.”

“Jesus, this is some Twilight shit.”

“To my credit, a god is way cooler than a vampire. I made the sea bend for you, what sparkly vampire can do that?”

“I’m not a good kisser.”

“You chicken to kiss me or you don’t want to kiss me?”

“No, no. I do. I swear. But you’re a god and I’m…”

Lance finished that thought, “And you’re like the lovechild of Achilles and Helen of Troy. Trust me, I was there.”

“Sorry. I don’t want you to kiss me and think I suck.”

“But what if it’s the good kind of suck though?”

“Wow, I can’t believe you can make me laugh and want to suck you off. That’s impressive even for a god.”

“Well I’ve been crushing very hard since I met you so you better believe I’m pulling every trick in the book.”

“Good line.” Keith gave him a thumb up.

“Thanks.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” Keith scooted his ass over the rocks, eyes going cloudy and the ambience plunging in a pool of heat. Maybe it had been far too long for him or maybe Keith was a beauty that rival Helen of Troy but the look in Keith’s dark blues made him excited. Got him kind of hard and thick. Made his skin burn like a furnace.

 His brain was basically operating with 90% dick and 10% brain so whatever Keith said flew over him. “My breath smells and I might cop a feel cause you have a fucking pretty face. And the god thing is hot.”

Desire scaled his body, moving with the slow pace of a insect, and the itch to be opened, naked, and fucked tripled.

Gods, people felt _this_ every time. No wonder they spent their lifetime for it. Shit was godly.

“Man I already have a dam boner from that. Get over here and fuck me up.”

Keith touched the hard bone of his jaw and moved Lance where he wanted, head cocked and trapped. Salty tinted lips pressed to his own—

And this was where the legendary Poseidon, ruler of the Sea and occasional wise ass and more often surf lord, met his tragic demise.

Hasta luego, motherfucker.

People figured bullets, explosives, radiation, knives were the real death dealers but they undervalued the cosmic destruction of lips to lips, the reaping that herald with it. How it revived you and cut opened your ribcage and jerked out the heart by its bloody shape in the same nanosecond.

He lived and died for eons.

He saw the start and the end.

And it was with a kiss. A fucking itty bitty kiss, not even a sloppy one or a nasty one or a tender one. It was the first type, the one you shared when everything started, when you were still learning the ABCs of love and yet to experience the XYZs of heartache.

Kisses, whoo. Give him a million.

They were—

Such a small gesture.

Such a tentative thing.

Yet it barreled through all his barriers.

So weak.

What shitty god he was.

To be weaken with a kiss like Sleeping Beauty in her tower, waiting for her prince to wake her sleep induced butt up, except Keith’s kiss wouldn’t break the spell or the curse. It was it. The blessing and the tragedy cause it was so good. Too good and the mere idea that one day he might not have it anymore, wrecked him.

Lance moaned, doing little in response and experiencing the sensation of lips to lips, of the fire in his gut, the hardness in his dick.

Keith backed off an inch, mouth distractedly close. “Come on, dude. You’re a god. Give me something better than that.”

“I could make the sea disappear if you liked,” Lance babbled as he stared at Keith’s mouth. Pink swelled it.

“Oh yea?” He poked his tongue out and licked it over Lance’s mouth. “What else?”

Why were they talking, they should be kissing. Only kissing.

“The creatures of my domain would swim to you. You could pet the belly of a Killer Whale.”

“Sounds pretty rad. Anything else?”

“I could flood the world,” he rasped, voice a pathetic shadow of his godly one but it carried the phantom notes of a god, hinted with a Greek accent. A noise that rumbled and pounded vibrating basses through the skin.

“Neat. You wouldn’t do that for any old mortal, right?”

Lance answered firmly, “No.”

“Good cause you’re my god now. You answer to my shit, Poseidon.”

Lips swooped over his, soft and a frenzy. Unmanagable. Wild.

Things broke in Lance’s body, things he never thought could be. Places he had no idea existed in this body. In his godly mind.

Keith pried his lips apart and licked a tongue inside, torturing Lance.

He wanted to shatter and be put back into jagged pieces.

Kisses were a ride with Keith, holy shit, were they something groundbreaking and pleasant each time.

Keith cradled his face and pressed his thumbs down and Lance answered the pressure by opening his mouth more, be such a whore for him. Trying desperate to be everything wanton for Keith. To be what seductress were in the old myths, the ones who drove men mad with lust. To be the soft lines. To be the hard and solid ones. To make Keith search for more. To be desperate for him as well.

Lance moaned, nothing like a god or a mortal but a fucking feeling. A sensation.

Keith clasped the back of his neck and pinned Lance from escape and ravished his mouth like he could taste a sweetness in it and he wanted to find it again and again. He trailed his other hand down his chest, slow and purposeful, he went for his nipples and teased.

The god spread his legs, hoping Keith knew very well where that hand should go, what that hand should do to him.

Keith played with the band of his trunks, a mean V and dark brown pubic hair framed his navel, and splayed his fingers on the curve of Lance’s dick. Found where he was still semi soft and fixed that. Lance entered Nirvana.

“Got something nice for me in there?” He groped, definitely on a power high at the sight of a god shuddering and whimpering like a day old pup.

“Fuck,” Lance groaned low, his hips moved without talking it through with him but since their plan benefited him he didn’t say squat.

Keith mapped out the girth and chewed his lip. “Look at that, packing a lot of heat, huh?”

“Gods.”

“How does it feel to be one calling for god?”

Lance made a weak sound. A desperate noise that tried hard to be a whimper but fucking failed and crashed into a rumble. “Feels kinky.”

A smirk drew slowly on Keith’s face.  The expression bared a striking resemblance to precious stones.

Time ceased any importance, immortality granted you ample time, but right now time had the weight and the gravity of a million lives, the urgency of one life in a single moment.

In the span of seconds, he counted their half-brothers.

In the span of nanoseconds, he counted their half-brothers.

Lance counted.

Poseidon counted.

Tremendously aware of time.

 

 

 

[x]

 

Keith popped his cheery.

No. Not that one, you little pervert, his first kiss.

Alright they fucking fondled each other too while they were at it but other than that, they were very romantic and mushy afterwards. Keith introduced the joy of hand holding as Lance taught Keith the real myth behind gods, the harrowing tales when they were mighty and powerful and the world tiny, the facts historians got wrong, what tales were truth and others mere hyperbole, how vastly different people were back then, how the air tasted,  and the color of the sea.

 Taught Keith the hidden messages in the waves, which tides promised the ride of his life and the tides that ensured a watery death, how to sync his heart and soul to the heartbeat of the ocean, to never disrespect her.

_She’s just like a woman, beautiful and sweet on you during the good times, but once the cards fall she can be a force of nature and she will leave you in fewer pieces when she’s done._

Showed him where the shells hid between reef beds and in the nests of blue and purple fishes. Revealed the blueprints of the ocean floor, where the path continued and where it stopped at a sudden drop, what lurked in the dark recess, the creatures mankind thought were myths, the ones they had no idea existed.  The secrets and adventures inside him wanted to burst forth and shower Keith. Everything of his he wanted to share with Keith. All that he could offer he wanted to give to Keith.

This was how it was—

To date a god.

To date a mortal.

They bridged the gap of immortal to mortal, of the powerful to the powerless, to the knowledge of centuries old date to the current data that powered the new one.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Lance drove the Jeep down the street, high end stores and restaurants that required a name in the Hills and a exclusive black card flanked his sides. Their storefronts showcased spotless glass windows, blank faced mannequins contorted into peculiar poses the outfits on them flawless, daddy’s princesses and trophy wives browsed inside with their Coach bags and Chanel summer dresses. Ideal location for a club, these people were suckers for the thrill of spending cash and flaunting themselves as the best and Hunk’s club did both.

 A cover charge at the door— that was if you could get in. No rags here, no common man because the big bucks associated with their own kind and they would not stand for chick who bought her Versace purse off the rack at Marshalls to stand next to thousand dollar handbag purchased _at_ Versace. The out people bought shit at discount.

Second a basic pint sent you back an easy fifteen so if you wanted anything with a higher alcohol content or something custom made, then you better drop out bigger bills than Benjamins.

Third, celebs loved to frequent the place. A-lister, B-lister, screen writers, producers, models, artists, etc. If that name was ever feature in lights or in a magazine, they came here.

Fourth the club was owned and ran by Dionysus, the God of wine and festivals, so the owner knew a thing or two when it came to parties.

People liked the name too, Olympus. When they stepped inside they were no longer in sunny L.A , no they were in ancient Greece. Marble veined the floor. Bone white columns supported the roof and the second floor where people could spectate on cozy throws and dine or they could close the curtains and squeeze in a little naughty action while the world forgot them.  The main floor housed a dance area with an elevated stage for performers and DJs. The bar occupied the entire left side of the club, the stools were legit marble bolted to the floor in case some drunks decided to have a face off. Bathrooms were on your right. Booths caved out small nooks of privacy.

 You were somebody if you came here.

It was the fucking place to be at, man.

And it was where Lance and Keith were going, free of charge, courtesy of the owner himself.

Lance just had to find a parking spot among the thick thongs of people running home from their daily shopping spree, to the people gathering in groups to enjoy the nightlife of L.A.

Keith worked as his lookout, head popped out the window for empty space, the lights from club and the street painted him purple, red, yellow, green. His undercut was trimmed, the top part groomed thoroughly and then jelled back but a few locks broke formation and dangled to his temple.

“You’re just wasting gas. Go back a few blocks and park there.”

“But it’s more impressive if we park right in front of the club,” Lance said.

One guy went into his white Lambo and Lance was certain this guy was going to move.

Instead the guy hopped back out with a USB cord.

“I could park on top of that.”

“Yea and then you would have to move it and pay for that Lambo.”

“What an asshole,” he grumbled, pressing softly on the accelerator.

Keith squeezed his thigh. “Totally like he should know you’re a god and move his stupid car.”

“Newsflash, babe, I’m fluent in Greek, Spanish, and sarcasm.”

“Then stop trying hard to impress me. You bought me a suit, you’re taking me out to an fucking expensive club, and you’re a god. You’re moving into sugar daddy territory.”

“I would be a sugar god, then.”

“I like beach bum Lance better.”

Lance looked away from the street. “Fine I’ll park where we can probably get mugged. Happy?”

“Hell yea, it’s an adventure now. Drinks and a mugging.”

They parked blocks away under a shitty, spotty light. Keith’s hand stayed in his, not that he had to cage him and protect him but Keith liked it there, that hand conjured tides and swallowed cities and it also touched him privately, affectionately, sensually. Lance’s hands were a refugee, a church, and a home.

Plus giddiness blossomed in his chest, fully aware that everyone else was unaware his boyfriend was a god.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

The bouncers unclipped the rope and waved the guys in. He was one of Hunk’s personal best and occasional visitor to their family parties. It was hard not to see why the guy was built thicker and studier than a tank, his clothes looked a second away from shredding, and he had the face of a guy who made frequent friends with other dude’s fists.

Lance bumped fists and pinched a bill for his trouble.

The people waiting next shouted at the bouncer as Lance and Keith passed through with no more trouble. “Hey we’ve been waiting for over an hour here and you let those guys in.”

Bouncer rolled his wrist and checked his watch, “They’re on the list.”

They went to the bar first and ordered a few beers. Bass rumbled, the music a hybrid of dubstep and this year’s top charting songs

“I feel nervous,” Keith admitted when the bartender walked away. “What if they know that I know?”

“My family likes you more than they like me if anything, I’ll get shit. So you’ll definitely have to put out tonight.”

Bartender returned, twisted the caps off, and handed the guys their sweating bottles.

Keith pivoted, body lined to look at the dance floor but his eyes were set on Lance. “You’re putting out.”

“Me?” Lance drank. “I’m being the sugar daddy so you put out.”

“But you’re the slut.”

He laughed, sliding on his forearms so he and Keith’s arms bumped. His voice sunk low, something dark and dangerous you found at the bottom of the sea. “Real cute, if you weren’t so pretty I might drown you.”

 “Lucky for me then.”

Lance titled his head and tapped two fingers under Keith’s chin and guided him.

His Helen of L.A. followed his directions and kissed him.  Beneath the bitter tang of cold beer, there was a pregnancy of mortal life. The mounting moments and milestones that marked their time. It was like the black sky on the night of this country’s independence, the sporadic bursts of fire and color, illuminating the sky with explosion then the world going dark.

They broke apart only to smile at each other, the whole universe zeroed down to two souls from two separate points, before they kissed again, mouth opening. A little slip of tongue. The energy in it more sexual and nasty than should be permitted for a public kiss but if people sneered or got grossed out then fuck them.

Lance felt like a _god_ and he wanted to bring Keith with him.

Hunk coughed, a ploy to jolt apart the couple, but Lance continued to mack on Keith. Hunk’s next form of attack was to pinch Poseidon’s side. Gods didn’t squeak and that was the story Lance stuck to as he startled back.

 “Once you two are done tongue fucking each other, you wanna go upstairs and say hi to the family?”

“Can we tongue fuck upstairs?”

“No.”

Lance cursed, mustering a obligatory amount of faux anger. “Cock blocker.”

The god of wine ignored his brother and nodded at Keith, “Good seeing you Keith. I see you made the bad choice in dating Lance.”

“Yea. I mean, no. Poseidon— aw, fuck.” Keith winced.

“Keith,” Poseidon shielded his face from the cringe that was his pretty boyfriend totally outing himself. He mumbled weakly. “Babe, you didn’t even try.”

Hunk clapped. “This is great, I fucking won the bet. Thank you.”

“Of course there’s a bet.”

“Let’s go, gossip girls.” Hunk clapped a hand on each of the men’s shoulder. “I want to collect.”

Lance surrendered, grabbed his beer and then Keith’s hand. “You own a fucking club,” he said to Hunk’s back as they followed him through the dance floor.

“It’s not the paper, Lance,” he said over the music. “Victory, it’s about being a champion. You wouldn’t know about that.”

“Again with that? Lose once and you’re cursed. First lesson Keith, gods never forget. We’re like elephants.”

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

A round of slurred cheers met them as they parted the privacy curtains and tip-toed over the sprawled legs and bodies on the cushions. Two uncorked bottles of champagne stood in the center of the coffee table with a sticky bottle of Jack Daniels next to it. Several shot glasses and pints littered sugary water rings on the surface.

Hunk took his spot back between Shay and Allura.

Lance and Keith sat on the only cushions left. The music was duller up here, more a muffled orchestra of sick drops and audio tuned vocals.

Lance set his bottle on the table.

“Everyone Poseidon has dethroned Artemis. We have a new king,” Hunk announced, sinking back. Lance saw his knees but no Dionysus.

Shay looked back to where Hunk disappeared, “Really? I’m free, finally.”

Coran toasted, “Welcome Keith. I’m sure you have so many questions so ask Zeus cause he had four shots already and will probably tell you anything.”

Zeus leaned on Apollo’s shoulder and mumbled. “I’m not drunk.”

Apollo patted his head affectionately. “Right, mate. Where’d you put the thunder bolt again?”

“Over,” Shiro hiccupped. “Over by…by. That place. Um. With the triangles.”

“See,” he pointed in demonstration.

Hades said, “Wait, you didn’t give it to Bastet right?”

“No. The dog.”

“Anubis is pretty chill,” Athena commented. “He’s really good at protecting artifacts. He has Thor’s hammer too last I heard.”

“Dude is like the pawn shop of gods,” Lance laughed.

Keith looked down at his hands, eyebrows scrunching in thought. “So it’s not just Greek gods. There’s all the gods from every religion?”

“Aye,” Apollo nodded. “But we really don’t meet other gods much. It turns into a cosmic pissing contest. Loki and Poseidon had a face off once.  We thought for sure, he would have words with Aegir.”

“Aegir is a good guy. His wife too, lovely couple,” Lance defended. “He showed me his place and everything. Now Loki was just talking shit.”

“Loki talks shit about everyone,” Apollo drunkenly dismissed it.

The conversation hopped from topic to topic, a few inspired by inquiries from Keith and others more a reflection made by the gods. Stories well known to each other but new and exciting to Keith. Poseidon rarely interrupted even when some of them reflected a younger, embarrassing version of himself. He didn’t want Keith to feel any parts of his past were off limits

What really warmed his body aside from the beer, the close press of Keith’s warm body, and the mass of people partying below, was this homely feel he got as he looked around at his family freely drinking to their heart content and talking animatedly. No one ever brought a mortal to the whole family and earned an approval, back then you would be sneer at. Now they fought over Keith’s attention, his input, his genuine reaction to their tales.

He twined their fingers, thinking loudly _do you know how special you are._

_Do you know I want a future, a long one, with you and my family?_

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

Keith ducked out to drain his blabber.

After a short space of time, Lance stepped out too as furtively as he could manage. Luckily everyone was decently buzzed.  He locked the bathroom door and hung an out of service chad on the handle that he pickpocketed from the janitorial closet.

 His footsteps echoed off the marble.

Keith washed his hands and flicked off the excess water into the glass bowel.

The god figured he waited long enough and pressed chest and cock to Keith and humped him.

Keith let his hands air dry, unbothered that Lance mounted and rubbed him like a cat in heat.

He laughed, “A beer and a little whiskey and you’re down to fuck. See, slut.”

“It’s arousing how my family is accepting of you and all.” Lance tugged down on the back of his collar and kissed his neck, he treated the area like it was a cock, moving his lips sensually with an sexual  energy.

Arousal hammered in violently, Keith slammed his hands on the counter and watched Lance’s twin in the mirror. Hands creeped from his back and worked over his body. “Wow that’s the creepiest thing anyone has ever said to me with their cock rubbing my ass. So kudos to you.”

No shame in sight, one of those wandering hands palmed Keith’s cock softly. “Nah. Nah. It’s like your one of us. Immortal and shit.”

Keith moaned. Common sense said to run back and play the part of Lance’s respectful boyfriend, not the boyfriend that accepted a handy in the bathroom. But he was starting to swell, growing thick and long in his pants, and Lance wasn’t exactly letting him have many options.

Plus it was hot. Naughty. Fucking depraved.

Sex in the bathroom. At a club no less, what kind of person fucking did that?

Apparently them.

Keith looked down, mouth parted. “Your foreplay blows.”

Poseidon’s stormy blue eyes flickered to the mirror. Man, oh _man_ ; the fucking sight could melt his bones. Old Poseidon turned to his natural liquid state. He felt he had no form. No body to keep him in one place. Somehow in infinite spaces, touching all the lands and running through every current, while tethered down to one spot.

Humans, man. Look what they could do. What they could _feel._ Maybe he lived as a god for eons but humans experienced these godly sensations from the dawn of their existence; and no gods ruled then. Gods were by products of humankind, little ideas and fairy tales they breathed into reality. So in reality, humans were gods before there were gods.

Trippy.

A better trip was the one he got watching Keith _feel_ this godly experience. The pink flush on his skin. The sex that clouded his eyes and roasted his voice to red hot embers at the bottom of a fire. How that sexual energy drilled a primal hunger into Keith. Made him a fucking _animal_. Had him whine, moan. Told his hips to fuck his hand. Told him to back slow and purposeful on Lance’s cock so the god wasn’t left out on the fun.

Keith had his eyes trained on the hand stroking his cock. Started biting his lip like it turned him on. Lance wanted a bite too.

Lance said into his ear, “Sorry I’ve been out of the game for a long time.”

Keith turned his head, his nose bumping Lance’s.  That pretty voice ran guttural as he said. “I can tell, you cum in ten seconds.”

“And here I was thinking we could fuck in the bathroom. Guess I should stop then.”

Keith pinned the hand fondling his cock. “We don’t even have lube or condoms…” the thought petered off unfinished when he read laughter in Lance’s eyes.

A promiscuous curl crooked one of the corners of Lance’s mouth.

The mounting rasp of desire in Keith’s voice dissipated. “You have lube and condoms, don’t you?” He deadpanned.

Lance produced a square packet and a small tube of Astroglide and held in in front of Keith. “Never leave home without it.”

Keith chewed his lip not in the effort of a sexual ploy but to literally fight against the smile threating to spread. “You’re a jackass.”

“What,” he said with laughter in his voice. Keith muffled his mouth. “Don’t laugh, it’ll kill the mood.”

He unshackled his mouth and wheezed. “Oh, the mood of fucking in a bathroom?”

“Yes, that one. Now.” Lance popped the button on Keith’s slacks and resumed his hooker voice. “Let’s fuck. You were pretty into it.”

Keith bobbed his head in consideration at Lance’s suggestion. “Well I do have a serious hard on.”

“I’ll be happy to take care of that,” Lance husked, mouth latched to the eloquent slope of Keith’s neck where it curled from the set of his shoulders.

“Okay, who’s topping?”

The god’s answer was immediate. “Me.”

“Nah,” Keith disagreed.

Lance paused his suckling and directed a challenging face to the mirror, Keith had his own expression to battle it, heavy on the attitude. Probably would be an intimidating sight were their lips not a blistering candy red and cheeks splashed with pink.

Unknowingly, the couple entered a brief stalemate, neither of them backing down from their unprompted staring contest.

Keith disrupted the silence, gaze unblinking like a feline as he asked their duplicates in the mirror.  “Do we have to rock, paper, scissor this?”

His lips set into a grim line. His line came out equally grim. “Clearly there is no other option.”

“So sexy,” he mocked.

The challenged now issued and the battle set, Lance released Keith from his extra grabby hands and backed up so Keith could turn around. Fixing his clothes, Lance said airily. “Unless you wanna bottom.”

Keith’s fist floated between them. The look of determination, the predatory expression of great beast with his eyes sighted to a lonesome prey, on Keith’s machete sharp features could put poor Achilles down on one knee and make him take the white.  “Best out of three.”

Lance didn’t bother to mute the smugness practically dripping out of every pore. He brought his fist out and a spread palm below it. “God speed.”

“Eat shit and fuck your puns. Shoot on three,” he said. “One, two, three. Shoot!”

Lance picked rock and destroyed Keith’s scissor. Point one to him.

He was grinning so hard his cheeks ached.

 “Beginner’s luck,” Keith huffed. He rolled his shoulders and jumped on the balls of his feet to loosen his stiff joint. His fist went back into play. “Out of three, remember? We have two more rounds.”

“Don’t feel bad, Keith. Not everyone can beat a god.”

“I’m going to fuck you so hard, man. Then we’ll see how godly you’ll feel. Now let’s do this. One, two, three. Shoot.”

Since rock served him so well, Lance picked it again which fucked him over because Keith changed tactics and went with paper. Round two to Keith.

Fuck.

A fair chunk of his bravo sunk. Lance opened his fist, stretched all five of his fingers, and closed them in again.

“Winner takes all,” said Keith. He wasn’t as on edge as Lance, though he should be. The game could fall in either of their favor. “Ready?”

The god nodded,  looking over Keith to gather an vague idea on which hand he might throw. He liked to think it would put him at an advantage.

“One, two, three. Shoot.”

It didn’t.

Lance stared at his finger scissor that Keith bashed with a fist, stunned.

But what he should be staring at was fucking Keith, who was growing hard and thick by the second and eyeing Lance’s pretty body with a ravenous look.

He got with the program when Keith grabbed him by the hips and crashed his body into his and put his mouth on every surface of skin made available to him. Keith switched their positions and Lance felt the counter against his ass.

Keith helped himself to the lube and condom Lance smuggled in, “Thanks. Appreciate the help.”

“You douche,” Lance gasped as a hand fuddled at his fly, fingers clumsy with excitement. It took a number of attempts for Keith to undo the button and find the metal of his zipper. “Gods, you can act like you have some self-control.”

Keith snipped as he unzipped Lance. “Oh like you?”

Back in the day such a waspish nature would thwart his attraction but hell, it was working now. Keith, his water riding warrior. Keith, his beautiful mortal. Keith, who didn’t take shit from a god.

“Touché.”

“Get excited. You haven’t been fucked in forever and now you are. Sex is way better. Us new kids know how to fuck really good.”

“You’re acting like I’m a virgin.”

“The body is, right?”

“If you want to be technical, then yea.”

Keith groaned, the sound low and needy. “Fuck.”

“Pervert,” a fiendish smirk curled on Lance’s face, it probably had no right being on the body with a god inside of it. Probably shouldn’t be in this club either, not with its magnitude of liquid white heat sizzling off it like a fat meat tossed on a grill. “Getting excited because I haven’t had a cock in me for centuries. You’re a barbarian.”

He felt his cock grow twice as hard and _heavy_ when a shiver worked through Keith.

“Oh shit. Stop you’re fucking making me hot.” Keith crashed their lips to keep his head up above the water that was Poseidon.

Lance nipped his lip and tugged on it, pulling so Keith had to chase his lead, he released him. “Slut.”

“Want me to suck your dick while I finger you?”

Cold air doused his feverish skin as Keith pushed his pants and briefs past his ass. He could feel the fabric of Keith’s slack where his cock pressed against him. Felt like he was on display all over again though instead of a crowd of worshippers and offerings for his mercy, he was at Keith’s with dick out and ready to explore.

“Just like a good mortal, wanting to be on your knees before a god. Must be in your DNA to worship. ”

Moving like water, Keith dropped. Legs spread so Lance’s slotted nicely between them. He tugged his pant the rest of the way and kissed the hard plane of his thigh. Lance gripped the counter behind him for stability.

“Keith.”

Keith looked up through his eyelashes. “Sounds like someone here wants to beg. I thought I was the mortal and you the big, bad god.”

Lazily, Keith licked at the head of his cock, savored the taste and figured it wasn’t worth his effort to play with it anymore and then went back to kissing Lance’s thigh. He moved his lips closer to the area of his inner thigh, applying teeth whenever he wanted Lance to cry.

Lance cupped the back of Keith’s head and tried to guide him to his cock.

Keith redirected that hand back to the counter. “C’mon, Poseidon. You should how to beg for it, you’re a god after all.”

“Fucking tease,” he grumbled; in his bones, no matter his godly front, he was going to cave. Keith’s head looked too nice between his fucking thighs for him _not_ to beg. And the mouth nibbling on him like a candy was fantastic too.

Imagine that on his freaking dick, whoa.

Then with fingers too?

God damn, where was the line for this ride?

Keith put a hand on each of his thigh and forced Lance to part them wide.

 “Nice cock, dude. Looks like it tastes pretty good too,” Keith husked, his voice dipped into a smoky hooker’s rasp, the kind working girls moaned and begged in—fucking _begged_ — for your fat cock. And you’re not some dumb John, the situation of her in a tight mini skirt and her tits popping out of her shirt and the car parked in a secluded alley gave no illusions. She was on the clock and you were buying the time; yet that voice, that body, all that erotic charisma had you believing she wanted you, was wet for you, was bouncing on your cock cause she liked to fuck.

 And Lance knew he wasn’t paying for it, for Keith’s services but the way he talked, the way he played with his cock like it was his favorite chew toy made he think he was.

“Suck me. Please Keith, want your mouth so bad. Want your cock too, babe. Please.”

“Gonna suck you good, okay? Try not to cum right away.”

Lance rolled his eyes, “Would you chill— oh fuck, oh fuck. K-Keith. Oh my fuckin- shit.”

Keith hummed around his cock, mouth turning red and full where he sucked hard on the head, and looked up at Lance smugly like _that’s what I thought, now shut up and take it_.

Took it, he did. Reclined his spine and watched Keith suck him off down the slope of his torso. It was quite the show. He moaned lewdly and not for show, Keith was as good as he boasted and the sounds he made sucking him could be recorded and slapped into the audio background of any porn. The fucking slurp, the wet sound of his fist pumping the part of the shaft he couldn’t fit, the throaty moans he made when Lance cupped his face and tried to feel the shape of his cock inside Keith’s mouth.

“Wanna cum,” Lance whined.

Keith popped off, breathing harshly. “Don’t. I haven’t fingered you yet.”

“This isn’t a marathon, finger me already. Hand please,” Lance thumbed the cap on the tube, making a grabby motion, Keith offered up his hand.

 The god squeezed out a dollop that Keith warmed between his fingers.

He dipped his hand under, searching for the rim. Tracks of lube caught where Keith’s hand bumped against his ass and balls

If Lance wasn’t a god himself he might think he found god when long fingers nudged in past his rim and shot up. He whimpered and the counter did a swell job of keep Lance horizontal and not on the floor where he would be without.

One finger felt pretty cool. Mucho, mucho bien.

 Two were more his speed. A little thickness.

 Three, man, three had Lance _talking_ and _singing_ those notes.  He could feel his ass being spread and the stretch was everything to live for.

He tried to fuck down on them, pushed his hips. Get that girth inside him.

Mas, mas, mas.

His voice grew sluttier by the second. His mouth knew the word _Keith_ backward, forward, side to side, to the planet Neptune, to the polar ice caps. He could write out with his tongue.

What a guy, really.

 Keith fucking grinned, the shadows of a huge ego developing on his face, Lance might be high to the heavens on the waves of pleasure crushing him but he wasn’t blind to the fat bulge in Keith’s pants. Guy looked ready to pop.

Good thing Lance had somewhere for him to go ka-boom.

 A fourth finger wiggled in and Lance was ready to crawl out of his skin. He might cry too. “Fuckin’ gods, do you plan on getting your fist in there too? Calm down, it’s an ass. Not a purse.”

Keith pulled on his cock, laughing, spit ringed the corners of his mouth. “I want to make sure my dick fits.”

“It will. You’re not that big.”

That motivated Keith, his fingers slicked out and his knees crack as he got up. He unzipped his fly and pulled his cock out, grasping it by the base. “Think you can handle that?”

“I’ll admit I’m so used it seeing it all tiny in the water. So maybe I was kinda wrong in saying you’re not that big.”

“Turn that ass around,” Keith instructed. “Push your ass out.”

“I know how to get fucked from behind, thank you very much.” He bent at the waist and popped his ass back.

“You’re moving slow.”

Lance looked over his shoulder. “Yes cause you were recanvasing my asshole one second ago.”

Keith laughed, “I guess this is the paint job, then.”

“Only if you skip the rubber,” he said, voice on the _edge_ from the foreplay, the cock sucking, and the thorough fingering. Maybe Keith was just preachy but Lance’s body, still new and learning how mortals fucked and all, hummed with urgency. Hummed with the throbbing ache between his legs.

His thighs knew to part. His spine knew to dip. And his elbows knew to brace themselves.

Keith shuffled behind him as his pants hung loosely off his hips, dick rubbing hot and thick where Lance clenched hot and ravenous. It was to demonstrate his size and have Lance sweat over it for fun, he knew. Hell, he liked doing that himself. Rutting right where they needed his cock. Let the guys get all excited and needy cause they wanted it _bad_.

The tables, they turned.

Keith went a step further and grabbed his dick and ran the head over his hole. Pushed in so it breached Lance slightly, a marginal stretch to the whole thing but Lance mewled like he just got his serving of meat.

“Wow,” Keith stared where Lance was red and gapping, words slurred from arousal as he said. “Your hole is nice too, what the fuck. Who has a pretty asshole?”

Heat tugged at his cock. His neck loosened and dipped giving an upside down view of his cock and balls swollen with need and thighs wobbly like an elk on ice. “Please stop talking and fuck me.”

Keith rocked against him once more for the feel of a messy rut, the one with no purpose but to hump a little and build up the pleasure. He ripped the packet and rolled the rubber down his cock and tried to fight the ache to pump it.

 When it reached the base, he leaned forward and nibbled on Lance’s ear. “Lube, please.”

“Uh I feel plenty wet already so…”

Keith nosed next, exhaling a breath intentionally over Lance’s sweet spots. It went on moist, a sheen of glitter on brown skin. The god’s took to it like an electric bolt, muscles quivering. “Needs to be wetter.”

“You’re going to turn my ass into a slip and slide.”

He snorted. “Poseidon.”

“Alright, alright. Here.”

The lube made a slippery, wet sound when he slicked it on. Keith kissed Lance behind the ear, put one hand on his hip and the second on his dick and pressed in easily. The first inch was difficult, the rest was a fucking blessing.

Lance breathed out breathy Os, the only relevant word in his vocabulary. He drooled too but Keith cupped his jaw and turned his face and licked him clean and shoved his tongue in his mouth for seconds. He did all that while rolling his cock into Lance, nice and slow at first, Lance was prepared good and all but he needed a little extra time to adjust and learn how long and thick Keith was inside.

Which did not take long.

Lance rocked his hips back, ass bouncing off Keith’s pelvis. There might be serious drops playing outside the bathroom but their own homemade audio could make everyone grind.

He thought he felt the heavy bass, vibrating sensations in his bones, but it was all Keith pounding his ass like he planned to take Poseidon to Mt Olympus.

Mortals had all the cool shit, probably why they died quick because they earned these fireworks of emotions and nukes of sensations, their flame burned the brightest Lance could attest to that. He fucked in his godly form but it was similar to jumping into a tub with clothes on.

Sure you got wet and sort of clean but it didn’t feel as comfortable.

So he was getting _fucked,_ like seriously fucked and it was good enough to make him think that he wasn’t breathing, that his heart was going to explode in his chest, and that his voice would cease to work after this point.

He breathed.

His heart hammered.

And he still had words in his throat but they made no sense.

Keith really liked the sound of him. Told Lance so. Also told Lance how tight and hot he was, how he had never had an ass like him, how he never had _anyone_ like this, how he wanted more— more sex, more time, more waves, more gods, more love.

“Poseidon,” he whined as he bucked violently.

He still had one hand on Lance’s hip and kept it so he could pin the god and fuck him at his speed and the current speed right now: fast as fuck. Maximum speed, pedal to the metal, like a bullet through the air. Lance wasn’t _walking_ normal after it.

 “Is that good? You like that, like my cock, Poseidon. Getting fucked like this.”

He hazarded a look in the mirror, thought about cumming when he saw the beast of a man Keith had become. Charcoal hair wild around his eyes. Cheeks pink. Mouth red like a slut. And eyes dripped in black tar.

Lance rasped, the words sounding like he spoke them with a hand at his throat and his air supply rapidly draining. “ _Yea, yea_.”

“So good at taking it, Poseidon. So damn good.”

“Doing me good, babe. I wanna fuckin’ cum bad.”

“F-fuck,” he cursed, vocals vibrating a noise of a flaming red knife slicing through steel. “Me too. Wanna cum in your perfect ass.”

For some reason, the unabashed admission launched him to his climax. Something about hearing Keith verbalized it, being told he was ruining another person without his godly powers.

_I don’t have to summon wave to make you drown_ or some poetic line like that.

Breaking Keith by simply letting Keith break him.

He turned, mouth opened and panting.

And Keith knew the drill, swooped in and fucked Lance’s mouth while he fucked his ass. His thrust weren’t gentle when he got close.

No. Fucking barbaric motherfucker had Lance on his tiptoes  and slapping his hand over the smooth marble counter for leverage, for ground, but marble had one type of cut and that was silk so his hand slid with sweat.

Lance lost comprehension three languages, unless you counted slut talk as a one then, yea no lick of reasonable speech babbled out of his mouth.

His legs quiver like a plucked strings of a guitar though it could because his body was taking one hell of a beating the rear.

Either way, Lance was in bad shape.

Red. Sweaty. Ass throbbing and cock spurting cum. Skin feverish.

A picture perfect slut.

And all the motivation Keith needed to cum hard and fast into the condom.

 

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

Lance looked down where the earth ended and the fall started. A pool of tropical blue water sat at the bottom for those brave enough to take the leap.  He tried to judge the distance from the top to the water, seemed a long way for a mortal.

Keith’s toes wiggled at the edge. Instinct reared up in the god and shouted for him to yank Keith back to safety. But he knew Keith, the guy would laugh and jump just to scare him.

He poked Lance. “Jump.”

“It looks far,” he said.

“I thought I was dating a god, not a chicken.”

Lance scowled. “Do really think you can cajole me so easily?”

Keith bent his elbows and flapped them like wings. Next came the chicken coos.

“Keith—“

Chicken Keith cut him off with a piercing bark. The god’s resolve dwindled at an distressing rate, he couldn’t understand if it was the embarrassment of his boyfriend clunking like a mother hen or the fact being called a chicken actually irked him. Men and women cursed his name, renounced their faith in him, damned him and his family. None called him a chicken.

It. Was. On.

Lance took a running start and flew. Air swooshed in his ear.

He could hear Keith jumping off the cliff as he went airborne; Keith’s shouts when gravity stepped in and pulled him to meet the water, high as shit on the chemical cocktails pumping good feelings through his veins, Keith’s signature laughter when Lance foolishly screamed before he hit the surface.

Gods could be chickens, it wasn’t an exclusive club.

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

The couple snuggled up by the fire. It was an uncharacteristically chilly night in L.A., sweatshirts and joggers season. Everyone packed on clothes with sleeves and a hood. Keith was lost in one of Hunk’s hoodies and a thin throw. Lance handed the blanket monster a custom made brew by the god of wine and tucked him close.

The other gods walked around as they chatted up and dogged down grilled burgers and fish tacos. A few new faces recently joined the group in L.A. Aphrodite finally scheduled time of out of her start studded life to mingle with her family.

 Hera relived old memories with Shiro by the pool, their shoes off tossed to the side and their toes in the blue glowing water.

Persephone kissed Pidge, the lovebird reunited and gross and happy with each other. The whole thing with her husband inside the body of a twenty-year-old didn’t bug the goddess. Her body wasn’t much older.

Allura, Shay, and Coran were in the middle of a game of darts. From the looks of win, Shay was in the lead by ten points. Coran set his beer down to line up his next shot. The girls cracked jokes and tried to spoil his concentration.

Hunk and Ares flipped yellow tails and sampled the food.

Keith burrowed closer.

“What happens after?” He asked, looking into the fire.

The wind made those orange tongues dance. He tucked the sheet around his body tighter.

After what?

Tonight?

Tomorrow?

Ten years?

Lance burped. “Explain.”

“When your body goes, what happens to you?”

“I leave. Back to the ocean until I find another vessel.”

Keith whispered, “And what happens to us?”

“A lot of things can happen.” He looked down at Keith where he was wrapped tight around him, like a vine to a vertical surface. He imagined the ocean without Keith. Imagined how lonely the sea would be without him in it.  “We can move on, you’ll age and pass and I live for another century. Or you can live with me if you want.”

“Won’t you miss me?”

Something hot and awful threatened to crawl up his throat. Lance swallowed it. “Terribly but immortality is a lot. Don’t worry about that stuff now, okay? Just sleep. I know you’re tired.”

“Wake me up when it’s time, yea?”

He nodded, hoping Keith wouldn’t be able to tell how badly he was trembling now.  “When the time comes, I will.”

A ocean without Keith.

It seemed impossible.

But it was a reality for him, for all mortals.

They all died.

Gods lived until all memory of them faded.

Maybe he would die too.

 

 

 

 

[x]

 

 

 

 

Cape Town beaches put the ones in L.A to _shame._ The shores were sugar white and free of the clutter you saw in big American cities. The water was so blue he thought it was dyed but apparently the water ran that clean here.

His toes soaked in the shallow water, crystal clear.

He rode the waves in the morning, met other local surfers and conversed in broken English. He came at dawn, noon, and midnight religiously.

Lance died a while back. The very thing that he loved and treasured drowned him. Keith didn’t know what to do with his cold body when it happened. Just kept performing CPR until his face turned blue and he couldn’t catch his breath.

The gods comforted him but they never had the understanding of grief mortals did. You lived forever at one point things like that stopped getting to you. Maybe one day Keith would act the same way when someone cried at a funeral.

After all, his expiration date had been expanded indefinitely with a sip from the fountain of youth. Plus Poseidon wrote in his will for all his money and belongings to be turn over to Keith so he never had to work a day in his life.

He didn’t work and he didn’t linger in L.A. when the casket was buried and the tombstone set.

He was off.

To find Poseidon.

To resume their routine.

To ride waves and fuck until the stars died.

To pick up the pieces of himself.

Hades explained to him; “ _It’s going to take time. Big deals like him need to rest in order to take another vessel and he could’ve gone anywhere to recover. There’s no reason to go looking, he’ll be back.”_

Keith scanned their empty apartment, hollow and cold without the god’s throaty laughter, without his scent collecting thickly in the corners like he brought the sea inside. Poseidon’s rack of boards, hoisted up and never used. He cleaned them every day, made certain the board had no fractures then that became too much. The walls echoed his footsteps, an audible reminder.

 A for sale sign sat in front of their lawn, garnering the eye of passing beach bodies. He couldn’t live in an empty home.  “ _I’m not waiting. Maybe I’m like you guys but in my head time’s limited.”_

_“Impatient, you lot. Fine, go look for that jackass. Just keep in touch, yea?  Last thing I need is him coming back and finding out I didn’t keep an eye on you while he hibernated.”_

Bon voyage, L.A.

 

He traveled, economy, with two duffel bags.

Went to—

Cayo de Agua in Venezuela.

West Bay Beach in Hondura.

Mago Beach, St John.

Sharm El Luli, Egypt.

Elafonissi Beach, Greece— thought this was a smart one, how did you find a Greek God but in Greece?

 

Didn’t luck out, too poetic too convenient for him, so next was—

The Bath, British Virgin Islands.

Praia da Marinha, Portugal.

Kata Noi Beach, Thailand.

Agonda Beach, India.

Horseshoe Bay Beach, Bermuda.

Flamenco Beach, Puerto Rico.

Now he was here, Camp’s Bay Beach, with the mountains sitting mighty and majestic in the background and the sky an impossible blue. Moss green dotted the landscape. The people here were in a perpetual spirit of laughter. Brew ran freely and cheap. Every now and again a movie starlet would dine at one of the cafes and the majority of the locals wouldn’t realize or care. They treated everyone the same like a relative you saw once a year.

Keith wondered how much longer he could maintain his crusade. How long he’d wait. How far he was  willing to go for Poseidon.

_Come back_ , he willed the sea. _Come back. I’ve waited long enough, right? Twenty-seven years and I still look the same and I’m alone cause you have to fucking recover._

Keith grabbed a rock under the water and chucked it at the sea. “Fucking asshole.”

Sea foamed licked at his ankles. His skin started to wrinkle. The sun dipped behind the water.

Another no-show.

Figures.

Date a fucking god and he had you waiting.

Even the crowd on the shore started packing it in for the night. One by one, street lights lit up and washed the quaint beach town in a warm glow.

Best to call it in for the night. It didn’t serve shit to stand out here and stare at the sea. To will Poseidon back.

“Looking blue, my friend. Bad night?” A voice said, the accent and tone pitched the man as a local.

Keith pivoted, face mean and heartbroken from the years of immortality minus a god. Immortal and he wasted every second searching for a person that the world chalked up to myths and wives tales. The fuck would this guy know about a bad night.

The local towered a few inches of Keith. His body trained on the mountains. The Caribbean filled his eyes. His smiled whispered all the tasty lines to get you wet and ready, lines to steal your cash, heart and soul.

He beamed, thousand watt, the sun should be pretty embarrassed that Mr. African dream boat could manage what it did without hovering in shitty dark space.

Lavender colored the uneven surface of the sea. Keith asked. “Is it a bad night if it last for years?”

“Then it’s a bad phase. What’s the trouble, family? Love?” The local walked into the water and looked out at the sinking sun. The evening colors complimented the local’s copper brown skin.

“A bit of both.”

The man laughed. “Ah, your spouse then.”

“Yea. He’s an asshole and I’m going to kick his ass when I see him.”

“Oh no. I would hate to be him. Then again,” He checked Keith out. “I would take a hundred beatings for a face like yours.”

Keith distanced himself. “Listen, this isn’t the part where I let you fuck me cause I’m piss at my guy. I don’t fuck around.”

“Good or else I would have to drown a few people.”

“What?” He whipped his head at that, heart in his throat with daggers for grapples. The emotion clawed, hot, obstructive, and painful. It became physical and prevented air from filling his lungs.

It was an ugly, raw thing. Destructive.

Hope pulsed alongside it though, a small ray of it, tentative to come out of the darkness for the fear it might be stomped on again.

Mr. Local kept his gaze forward, gracing Keith’s with his perfect profile. A jawline hewn from rocks. Plump pink lips. “It’s really hard to rest when I have you causing a ruckus on every sea. Really. I got no sleep.”

“Fuck you,” he wheezed.

“You have,” Poseidon smiled. “Very well, I might add. Maybe you’d like to again.”

“Poseidon?”

Poseidon turned, a frown pulled on his full lips. Until he saw it, Keith realized the god rarely frowned. He was always channeling good vibes.

Hands, familiar and unfamiliar, cupped his face and wiped at the tears running down his face.

It tripped him bad cause it was all one person he knew in another body. He saw Lance, Poseidon, and this new guy in one disorientating moment but that didn’t stop him from falling into those callous hands and letting those big arms hold him.

Three people one body.

One soul, three people.

Keith tried not to work out the logistics.

Buried his head into Poseidon’s chest because that was where the heart sat. It pulsed. He counted each one, got up to three digits and grew tired. Keith could probably fall asleep like this and never wake up.

Poseidon let him and pressed kisses into his hair.

Listened to the sea music that was sea foam bubbling and tides furling.

They’re on the shore for some time, though if you wanted specific Keith didn’t keep track.

Immortality did that. You lost track of time.

Your life became one endless stream of moments after moments.

He could tell you that the moon hovered in the blackberry sky, swollen and yellow.

Time to lose track of time again. No more counting the fucking years, the countries he visited, the nights with a cold bed and no body.

Time to get lost with a god.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the length? why do i do this to myself??!? i need help.
> 
> comments, kudos, and subs keep my ass happy and motivated.
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp  
> twitter: angry_latte
> 
> a minor note for future projects: normally i have a project line up so i can give you guys nice monthly detailed fics. currently i'm torn between several ideas. hopefully i can nail one down and get started on it.


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